POLITICAL MEETINGS. A Crowded, gas-lit, stuffy hall, A prosy speaker, such a duffer, A mob that loves to stamp and bawl, Noise, suffocation—how I suffer! What is he saying? "Mr. G. Attacks the British Constitution, It therefore—er—er—falls to me To move the first—er—resolution: "That—er—the Shrimpington-on-Sea United Primrose Habitations Pronounce ('Hear, hear!') these... more...

URBI ET ORBI. Mr. PUNCH returns thanks for the anticipatory congratulations on the occasion of his Jubilee, and takes this opportunity of informing his friends—which means Everybody Everywhere—that the 50th anniversary of his natal day is July 18 prox., which day Mr. PUNCH hereby gives full and entire permission to the aforesaid Everyone Everywhere to keep as a whole Holiday, and do in a general... more...

NOT GOING AWAY FOR THE HOLIDAYS. Cookson Gaze, Q.C. Because MARIA votes Eastbourne vulgar, and the girls (sorry now I sent them to that finishing-school at Clapham) laugh so consumedly whenever I open my mouth to address a native if we go to Trouville or Dinard. C. Jumper. Because the Governor thinks three days in the year enough for anybody. Eastend Dr. Because that fiver will just give little SALLY... more...

A PLAY OF FEATURES. [Being Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER'S production of The Attack at the St. James's.] SCENE—Alexandre Mérital's house. ACT I. Daniel Mérital. My father is a wonderful man. Leader of the Social Party in the Chamber of Deputies, noted among his colleagues for his absolute integrity, supported by the millionaire newspaper proprietor, Frépeau, whose motives, between ourselves,... more...

GREAT MEN OF AMERICA. By MOSE SKINNER DANIEL WEBSTER Was the sort of a man you don't find laying round loose nowadays to any great extent. It's a pity his brains wasn't preserved in a glass case, where the imbecile lunatics at Washington could take a whiff occasionally. It would do 'em good. We are told that as a boy DANIEL was stupid, but this has been said of so many great men... more...

THE WARNING OF THE BELLE LOOK OUT FOR THE TRAIN. PATRIOTIC ADORATION. A TALE OF PHILADELPHIA.People of the Quaker City,How the world must stand aghastAt your wondrous venerationFor those relics of the past,Kept in such precise condition,Fostered with such tender care—Don't, oh! don't the PhiladelphiansLove old Independence Square? Splendid are its walks and grass-plotsWhere the... more...

THE AUTOMATIC PHYSIOGNOMIST. SCENE—The German Exhibition, near an ingenious machine constructed to reveal the character and future of a person according to the colour of his or her hair, for the small consideration of one penny. A party of Pleasure-seekers are examining it. First Pleasure-seeker (a sprightly young lady of the name of LOTTIE). "Put in a penny and get a summary of your character... more...

September 16, 1914. "Our future lies upon the water," once boasted the Kaiser. "And our present lies in it," as the German soldier remarked when the Belgians opened the dykes near Antwerp. The mass of the German people would seem to be extraordinarily ill-informed in regard to the War and to stand sadly in need of enlightenment in some respects. For example, their ebullitions of rage... more...

THE HEIR OF APPLEBITE. CHAPTER IV. HAS A GREAT DEAL TO SAY ABOUT SOME ONE ELSE BESIDES OUR HERO. Kindness was a characteristic of Agamemnon’s disposition, and it is not therefore a matter of surprise that “the month”—the month, par excellence, of “all the months i’the kalendar”—produced a succession of those annoyances which, in the best regulated families, are certain to be partially... more...

Being gifted with decent taste and a sensitive eye, I have never been much beguiled By advertisements, crude in colour, and ten feet high (Which, in fact, I rather reviled); And, as for gigantic signs swinging up in the sky— They drove me perfectly wild! II. Then the lurid posters on paling and chimney-stack Were the terror of every town— Till a League was started by Mr. William Black For the... more...