Re: The Pages of Punch
1932: How to Cope With Severe Financial Problems
Frequent references to the Great Depression in 1932 seem quite topical these days.
The man in the armchair hasn’t any idea of how to cope with his inability to pay his many bills. He seems not to know how to reduce his expenditure. At least he understands that there is a serious problem. He feels that he ought to worry. Since all his life he has got other people to do things for him he now tells Perkins to do his worrying for him.
The readers of Punch are not expected to feel sorry for him. He belongs (or used to belong) to the super rich. I see him as a man who was brought up in the expectation that he would never need to do a single day’s work throughout his life. Indeed, I would guess that his father had lived his entire life without any need to work. His grandfather I imagine used to work extremely hard all his life. He would have been a Victorian entrepreneur who amassed great riches having started life extremely poor. There were many such in the Nineteenth Century. With his great wealth behind him he would then see to it that his offspring would become ‘gentlemen’. It was a very common story.
The only plan that Perkins could come up with after looking at the bills would be to start to seek alternative employment.