Re: The Pages of Punch

1934: Christmas is special

Here is another burglary joke though this time it contains a sugary Christmas message. The man on the left is clearly the burglar with the tools of his trade and a torch on the floor behind him. The householder is sharing a Christmas toast with the burglar and the policeman who has just made the arrest. The lady of the house is also drinking the toast and the maid is holding a plate of mince pies.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1934: The craze for autographs

Without modern technology the celebrity culture had to make do with autographs. The two small boys are seen as scruffy totally unlike the image they were expected to project. Today’s equivalent is of course taking selfies in which you secure of a picture of yourself with the celebrity in question.

Bradman (Sir Don Bradman 1908 – 2001) was a famous Australian cricket player. Wikipedia states that he is the most outstanding test batsman of all time quoting his test batting average of 99.94 as the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1937: Theatre tickets

This drawing is quite accurate. People really did this at the time. Mrs Magoo used to do it in her student days. Nowadays we book online.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1932: Bad behaviour by the super-rich

Once again Punch a cartoonist is censuring the super-rich. The servants, and there are plenty of them, are expected to ‘enjoy’ watching their wealthy employers playing bridge. In 1932 the Great Depression meant that secure regular work extremely was scarce. They would have to put up with this selfish decision.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1935: Vicarious ownership of a super car

The nephew hopes that his aunt will comply with his suggestion. He isn’t really going to take her driving very often. She wouldn’t enjoy being driven at great speed nor would she be happy with his intended list of female passengers.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1934: A case of irony

The joke here is that the scene we are witnessing in no way justifies the homeowner’s reason for rushing home after work.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1934: Pompeii takes second place

The scene is on a cruise. The speaker is totally involved in the ship’s activities and reckons Pompeii cannot compete with the finals of the deck billiards. The cartoonist chose to be called Fougasse which is the name of a French speciality bread. This artist was to be particularly active during World War Two producing public information posters.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1934: They should speak English

There really was a tendency to shout louder in English when foreigners didn’t understand what was said to them. The artist has played a little joke by displaying a bit of school textbook French in the display above the newsagents on the top left of the drawing.

It has to be said that today the incentive to learn foreign languages is not helped by the fact that more and more people the whole world over seem to speak at least a bit of English.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1935: Let’s not get carried away

Once again here is the casual way in which people took it for granted that they shouldn’t be expected to understand foreign languages.

Re: The Pages of Punch

1935: The ceremony of making tea

The cartoonist assumes that these picnickers have never heard of thermos flasks. On the other hand perhaps a thermos wasn’t considered good enough.