CHAPTER 4

Punch and comicjournalismin

mid-VictorianBritain
RichardlVoakes

In fi42 the Westminster Reuiew examineda new comic periodical that had
'Committee
^pparentlybeenestablishedto meet the demandsof a recent of
Council for Education' launchedby the governmentfor improving meth-
ods of popular instruction. According to the reviewer,the editor of this
'all
new periodical had successfullyembraced the moral, scientific,philo-
sophical,political, poetical,and intellectualsubjects,requiring to be newly
adaptedto the wants of the age'.Adopting a more ausrererone, the reviewer
questionedwhether

criticismson the part of a quarterlyreviewshouldbe confinedto high-priced

publicationscirculatingexclusivelyamongthe wealthy,but having little or no
influence among the masses.Let it not be said, can any good come out ofNazareth?
All the good that the people at large can desire from the labours of the philosopher
or man of science must reach them, if it reachesthem at all, through the medium
of the cheap literature of the country.

The cheap literary newcomer certainly deservedto be noticed by the

'moral
Westwtinster.It displayed superiorrry over comparablepublications,
such as the Satirist, the Age, and John Bull, its elevated 'wit and humour'
'desire
testified to a growing for somewhat more healthful and intellec-
tual meansof pleasurableexcitementthan police reports',and its woodcuts
'improvement
demonstratedthe in the art of wood-engravingfor practical
purposes'.t
The subject of the review was Punch: Or the London Chariuari, a
weeklythat first appearedon ry July r84r (fig. 1.1. The Westminster clearly
anticipatedthat Punchwould pI^y an important part in the dissemination
of philosophicaland scientific labours to the 'masses',becauseit struck a
balanceberween'pleasurableexcitement'and intellectualstimulation. The
formula worked, becausePunch outlived most of its rivals in the competi-
tive field of Victorian comic journalism. Althou gh Punch struegledduring
its early years,within rwo decadesof its launch this ld illustrated comic

9r
 Comicj ournalism: Punch 9J
journal becameone of the most talked about and respecrable institutions
of British literature.'
More has been written about Punch than almost any orher periodical,
but little attention has been paid to its scientific conrent.l Only recendy
have scholarsbegun to appreciatethe complex representarionsof science
tn Punch.In particular,RichardAltick's magisterialaccountof Punch'sfirst
decadeillustrateshow faithfully it tracked majorscientific,engineering,and
medicaldevelopments,and how scientifictopicswere usedro com-.nt o1
non-scientific issues.In his generalstudy of Victorian satire and science
JamesParadishas surveyed Punch'sironic porrrayal of the increasinglyab-
stract fruits of scientific research.James Secord'sexploration of Prnc/t's
responseto the Wstiges{the lVatural History of Creation (t8++) helps us ro
understandthe periodical in the overlappingmetropolitan landscapesof
graphic journalism and scientific spectacle.Roy Porter'sstudy of medical
illustrationsshowsthat Punc/t'srepresentations of medicalpractitionersre-
flectednot only an individual artist'ssqylebut also a Victorian tradition of
'phenorypically
depicting doctors and physiognomic"lly rather as the pro-
fessionmight havewisheditself to havebeenseen'.Finally,my recentstudy
of Punch'sportrayalof technologicalsubjectsand its deploymentof techno-
logicalmetaphorshelpsus to understandthe embeddedness of engineering
and invention in Victorian political, social,and cultural discourses.4
For most historiansof sciencePuncb has been a handy sourcefor docu-
'popular'
menting reactionsto scientific topics of the d^y, ranging from
public health to new inventions.t They treat Punch as a passivemed-
iator, rather than an active mediilffi, of science.However, recent work on
the history/ of nineteenth-centuryprint culture suggeststhe importance
of understandtng Punch as an active producer of knowledg.. Thus in his
analysisof Punch's greatcontemporary, the lllusftated London lVews,Peter
Sinnema rightly urges us to treat any periodical as a 'singular discursive
practice,activein the production of truth(s), and engagedwith a complex
arrayof other discourses'.6 Studiesby Roy Porter Brian Maidmenr re-
"rd
inforce this argument by insisting that graphic prints always'represent'or
mediatehistorical events'through aestheticand gestural.orrr..rrion', and
JamesSecord'sVictorian Sensation(zooz) demonsrrareshow much pop-
ular perceptionsof controversialscientific claims owed ro the way i"ilt
claimswere representedin illustrated periodicals.TOf particular i-por-
tanceto this chapter is Janet Browne'srecent discussionof caric"tur., of
Darwin in Victorian comic periodicals.Browne concludeswith the com-
pelling suggestionthat these humorous portrayals 'are nor just a rrans-
parent medium of communication, not iust illustrations,but could be
94 Sciencein the lVineteenth-CenturyPeriodical

the actual shapers- maybe even reahzers - of nineteenth-centurvpopuiar

thought'.8
Thir chapterattemptsro understandhow Punchfunctioned asa medium 'peo-
for producing scientificknowledgefor what the Westminster calledthe
-
pl. large'. Concenrrating on the first three decadesof the periodical a
"t
period .olr.rponding approximatelyto the tenure of the first editor, Mark
L.*or, - it that Purrh's production of sciencewas intimately con-
"ig,r.,
nectedwith a function that it sharedwith most weeklies- the representation
of news and topical issues.\il7hat was specific to Punc/t was its use of the
techniquesof .o*ic journalism to engagewith and reproduce scientific
'served
-"t.ri"l. Altick has rightly arguedthat Punch asa weekly illustrated
comic supplementto the Londo n Times,reflectingasin a distorting mirror
a selectionof the week'snewsand jauntily editorialisingon its significance'.e
Its dependenceon the ebb and flow of news storieswas neatly captured
by Shirley Brooks, a later editor, who boastedthat Punch'set its watch by
the clock of The Times'.'oThis chapter showshow the scientific material
dependedon Punch'sjournalistic pulse.The contributors to Punch engaged
*ith topical and sensarionalscientific subjectswhich their readerswould
have.rto,ptered in readingnewspapers, visiting exhibitions,and listening
to gossip.
Buildi"g on the work of Celina Fox, and continuing themesexploredin
the introd,r.tion to this book and in chapter z,I shallinitially situatePunch
in the merropolitan world of graphic and comic journalism, and outline
how its earlf contributors developedthe periodical in order to appeal to
the increasinglyaffluent Victorian bourgeoisie."I then examine the con-
tributors themselvesand show how sciencefigured in their backgrounds,
interesrs,and in their weekly negotiationsto produce the periodical'scen-
'large
trepiece the cut'. Drawing on a systematicstudy of the entire
contents of the periodical berweenr84r and r87t, I then survey the kinds
of scientific maierial contained rn Punch, and the literuty and graphical
genresdeployed." The journalistic preoccupationsof Punch contributors
arespectacularlyreflectedin its content and form. The scientifictopics that
Punch satirizedwould have been familiar, entertaining, or of relevanceto
middle-classreaders,and consistedprimarily of commentarieson scientific
news items.
The final section details how different literary and graphic genres de-
ployed by Punch engagedwith scientific issues.I use this approach to
support my central contention that Punc/t'ssatireson sciencewere not
iniended merely to entertain readers.Instead, Punc/t'sinvolvement with
sciencewas frequently serious,informed, and provocative.Although this
 Comicjournalism: Punch g5

rnaterlalmight have prompted a smile or even a laugh, it was ultimately a

soberengagementwith the world of science . In this senseLeslieStephen's
'greatest
fi76 description of the of modern humourists' applies ro Punch
contributors,for they ofren seemedto be thoroughly Puritan in their com-
'strongest
edy,having the perception of the seriousissueswhich underlie
our frivolous lives, the profoundestsenseof the infinities which surround
our petty world'.'3 The moral conscienceof Punch,so powerfully revealed
in its rants over political, religious,and socialissues,alsoshone forth in its
discussions of science.
Throughout this chapter,I shall be using 'science'asa convenientshort-
hand for science,technology,and medicine, and employing an inclusive
definition of theserelatedaspectsof culture. The former -o,r. is not only
desirablebut justifiableon the groundsthat in its first three decades Puncb
often refcrredto the enterprisesand practitionersof medicine and techno-
'scientific'.ta
logy as

TFIE'wORLD CITY, COMIC JOURNALISM, AND PtlLlCH

In chapter z JonathanTopham emphasizedthat London-basedillustrated

journals of the late Regencyperiod drew extensivelyon the spectaclesof
the metropolitan landscape.Punchwasno diffcrent. From fi$ to rgoo the
Punch office was in a single-storeybuildingat 85 Fleet Street,in the heart
of London's blossomi"g journalistic empire. Here its writers and artists
often composedtheir material, surrounded by the workplacesof the very
professionalswhose writings and deedsfuelled Punclt'scolumns - the myr-
iad newspaperofficeson Fleet Street,the Middle and Inner Temples,the
Apothecaries'Hall, and the Royal Collegeof Surgeons.From the windows
of their office, Punc/t'searly contributors watched the Lord Mayor's Show
other spectacles that took placeon one of London's busiestthorough-
Ttd
fares,and then turned these displaysinto cartoons and commentaries.'5
Many of thesejournalistslearnt their trade in, or followed the examplesof,
the new cheapillustratedperiodicalsofthe r8zosand r83oswhich o*.d their
success to their abiliry to re-presentin comic form the funeralsof monarchs,
the processionsof priests,stagedramas,displaysof exotic species,exhibi-
tions of new machines,illustrated scientifrcdiscourses,and a plethora of
other sensationswhich drew the sameLondon crowds who bought cheap
periodicals.
London wasthe sourceof eventsthat providedjournalistswith their copy,
but asstressedin the introduction to this book, it alsopossessed the *."lih,
the print technologies,artisans,and readersnecessary/ to the successof any
96 Sciencein the lVineteenth-CenturyPerioc{ical

new periodical. For the journalists,engravers,artists,and dramatistswho

launched Punch wrth'no higher ambition than to put some breadon their
tables',the'\7or1d CiqF'wasthe placeto make a lir.ing from re-presenting
the week'snews and events.'6The introduction to this book also shares
with most historians of Punchthe view that the mass-circulationillustrated
periodical was a product of early nineteenth-centuryindustrializedprint
cultures.'7During the r8zosand r83osthe success of such cheapillustrated
weekliesas the Mirror of Literaturedemonstratedto entrepreneursthat the
new steampressesand wood-engravingtechniquesoffered a cheapway of
mass-producingweekly journals that blended picturesand text.'8The new
journals alsoshowedthe important role that scientificreporting could pl"y
'common
in keeping a journal afloat and its team of writers' in work.'e By
the time Punchwas launched in r84r, journals such as the Athenaeumand
the Mirror had helped createa growing reading audience for digestsand
other re-presentationsof the week'soften spectacularstoriesof scientific
endeavour.For the founders of Punch, ajournal that built its comedy on
the week'snews,scientificeventswere an increasinglyimportant sourceof
copy.
Punch drew on the early nineteenth-centurytraditions in comic jour-
nalism that are explored in the introduction. These included the weekly
satiricalprint issuedby engraverssuch asJohn Doyle (father of earlyPunch
cartoonistRichard Doyl.); cheapradical satiricaljournals of the rSrosand
t8zos, such as the Agt and Satirist; literary magazineswith humorous con-
tent, such asFraser's Magazineand Blackwood.'s EdinburghMagazine;misce-
llanies that included comic material, such as the Mirror and BentleysMis-
cellany;expensivejournals of genteelhumour including Thomas Hood's
ComicAnnualand GeorgeCruikshank'sComicAlmanack; andaboveall, the
cheapsatiricalweekliesof the r83os- such asFigaro in Lond,on(which was
edited by Punch founders Gilbert Abbott ) Beckett and Henry Mayhew),
Punchin London(ednedby leadingPunchcontributor DouglasJerrold),and
the Paris-base d Le Chariuari. Someof the commonestliterary and graphic
genresfound rn Punchwerestockaspectsof theseearliergenresof periodical
publishing: droll commentary on the week'spolitical and socialevents,lit-
eraryand theatricalgossip,parodiesof literary serials,cartoons,humorous
'ephemera',
poems and songs,puns, jokes and and vignette illustrations.
Other aspectsof the periodicalhad important precedents:for example,the
fictional editor, Mr Punch, was yet another borrowing from the famous,
genial,and occasionallyirasciblefairground character,and the notion of a
fictional editor itself had been usedsuccessfullyin the earlyyearsof Black-
woocl's.Likewise,the double-column format and division of the periodical
 Comicjournalism: Punch 97
: " - 'departments'had beenusedin Figaroin Lonclonwhile Punch's
lnto varlous
subtitlecleverlyexploitedthe successof Le Chariuari.Punch'sstrategiesfor
saririzingsciencewere alsonot without precedent.For example,its carrca'
tlrresof statesmenasphysjciansand grotesqueanimals,its spoof reports of
scientistspursuing useless trivia about the natural world, and its humorous
advertisements for absurdlychimericalengineering schemeswerefamiliar to
readersof Bentley's Miscellany,\filliam Hone's Political Shouman at Home
(r8zr), and Cruikshank's ComicAlmanack, which themselvesdrew upon
standardtechniquesof scientificsatiredevelopedin such celebratedworks
asThomas Shadwell'sVirtuoso$676), and theMemoirs ofthe Extraorc/indry
Lxfe, Workt and Discoueriesof Martinus Scriblerus(t7r4).'"
Despite its obvious relianceon earlierforms of comic journalism, Punch
containedgreatervariety than most humorous journals of the r83os:for ex-
ample,greaterflexibiliqyof pagelayout was used,aswell asa largerrangeof
fonts, and more illustrations." As we shall see,representationsof scientific
events,and in particularspectacularscientificevents,helpedachievethis va-
flet\l.However, by the r85osthe layout had becomemore standardtzed,but
by then Punchwas establishedasa British institution and it was no longer
necessary to attract readersby experimentingwith the format. What chiefly
distinguishedPunch from its predecessors, and what securedits long-term
success, was the elevatedtone of its humour. As the previouslyquoted re-
'moral
viewer in the Westminster recogntzed,Punclt's superiority set it apart
from earliersatiricalpapers.By the time Punchwas founded the older and
vulgar traditions of comic journalism were dying out, not leastbecause,as
'a
Altick suggests, certainclimate of propriety,reasonablypervasivethough
hardly universal,had settled over the court, aristocracy,and the political
establishment' ." The chief upholdersof this new climate of respectability-
the middle class- were growing in size and wealth, and they were thus
increasinglyimportant consumersof literature. It was to this classthat
Cruikshank and other earlynineteenth-century purveyors of radical print
satireincreasinglydirectedtheir energies,moving away from what Marcus
'confrontational
\flood calls the or violently subversive'nature of the print
'whimsical
satiretowardsthe and charming socialsatire'that would become
'respectable
the staplediet of Victori an journals'.'l \X41enPunch'sfirst ed-
'keeping
itor Mark Lemon reminiscedthat his journal survived by to the
gentlemanlyview of things', he was underlining that its successdepended
on supplying its bourgeois,largelymetropolitan, and predominantly male
readerswith the kind of humour they increasinglywanted - lessvulgar,
lesspersonal,more genteel,and more focusedon generalcharacterrypes.ta
Punc/t'sshift from the older and more vulgar traditions of comic journalism
9B Periodical
Sciencein the lYineteenth-Century

was nor immediate: indeed, during its first decade,the politically turbu-
lent r8,1os,it often looked back to those earliertraditions and articulated
its political and reformist missionsmost emphatically.By the mid-r8Ios,
however, this harsher marerial had largely disappearedand Punch had fully
acceptedits role as a respectablefamily comic paper, which it retained
throughout its mid- and late-Victorianzenith.
Thi change in rone is reflectedin the scientific material that Punch
carried. Compare, for example,how Punch dealt with scientific societies
in its earlyy."tr and in the early r87os.In the early r84os, it published a
streamof potent satireson the British Associationfor the Advancement of
Science the British and ForeignInstitute. Inde ed,Punch'sndicule of the
""d 'British
lamentableactivitiesofwhat it calledthe and ForeignDestitute' and
rtsad hominem swrpesat the Institute'sfounder, JamesSilk Buckingham,
embroiled it in fierce journalistic controversy.'iSome rwenry-sevenyears
later,Punchwriters and artistshad developedmuch more respectand even
admiration for scientificsocieties.Thus the r87r British Associationmeet-
irg prompted a lengthy poem in which comic descriptionsof \Tilliam
Thomson'spresidentialaddresswere balancedby a serious-tonedchallenge
to Tho-rom notion that terrestriallife originated in meteors.'6The tone
of the uisual representationsof scientific subjectsalso underwent a grad-
ual refinemenr. This transformation is powerfully shown when we con-
rrast the way medical practitionerswere portrayed by leadingPunch artists
of the early r84os and r86os. Representativeexamplesare John Leech's
r|4z caricature of a drunken medical student (fig. 4.2) and George Du
Maurier's 1865more boldly drawn and'realistic' cut of a woman physician
(fig. 1d which highlight the broader trend towards a more genteelvisual
humour.
tJnlike many of its rivalsand imitators in the competitivefield of comic
journalism, Puruchwas, from late 1842,backed by the highly successful
printers \7i11iamBradbury and FrederickEvans.Not only were Bradbury
and Evans innovators in woodcut techniques and steam printing, thus
enabling the rapid mass production of illustrated journals, but their
substantid capital also enabled contributors to experiment with the
periodical'scontent and format.'7 This flexibiliry enabledPunch to adapt
itself to the preoccupationsof a predominantly male, middle-class,and
merropolitan readership.Indeed, Punc/t'ssuccessowed much to the abiliry
of its contributors to make readerslaugh at themselves,an achievement
that dependedon the culture sharedberweenproducersand readers.Thus
they drew on a common experienceof, say,botanical specimencollecting
on holi d^y,and on a sharedknowledg.,via reportsin the Times,of quackery
 Comicj ournalism: Punch IOI

and second-class railway travel, and of lecturesat rhe Royal Polytechnic

Institution. This is not to suggestthat all middle-classreadersenjoyed
laughing at themselvesin the periodical. Humour shadedinto brutaliry
tn Punch'suseof crude stereoqFpes in portraying Irishmen, Jews,Roman
Catholics, and Americans.'8 Neither did it pleasecertain individuals
notably,the Irish statesmen Daniel O'Connell, the journalistSamuelCarter
Hall, and the impresario Alfred Bunn - who were subjected to highly
personaland defamatorycriticism.'e Even regularsubscribersoccasionally
found someof its material in poor tasteand *..t objectionable.For exam-
pl., in 186r Charles Darwin told Thomas Henry Huxley that he 'did nor
'Monk
think' the Punch poem eyani, describingthe conrroversyberween
Huxley and Richard Owen over man'ssimian ancestry,'verygood'.3oThere
were undoubtedlv many literate Victorians who eschewedPunch entirely,
its rougher edgeslimiting its appeal to what Susanand Asa Briggs call 'a
seriesof segments'within the Victorian readingpublig.l'

SCIENCE AROUND THE PUAICH TABLE

Punch may not have appealedto certain segmentsof Victorian society,

but its mid-Victorian circulation was neverthelessimpressivefor a comic
journal. In the early l86os, for example,Punchwas selling approximateiy
6o,ooo copieseachweek, comparedwith the zo,ooo copiesof Fun and the
ro,ooo of Tomahautk,two relativelynew comic weeklies.3'Commenrators
on Punch from the Victorian period to the presenragreethat the successof
the periodical dependedgreatly on the political and moral characterof its
satire,but alsoon the friendshipsand cordial professionalrelationshipsbe-
rweenthe periodical'swriters, artists,and publishers.l3Despite differences
in socialbackground,personality, and attitude, the periodical'sproducers
becamean important British literary community and their informal weekly
meetingsto discussthe week's'largecut' functioned asan exclusiveclub to
which many aspiringlitterateurssought invitations. Contributors brought
to Punch their skills in journalistic reporting, editing daily and weekly
papers,writing stagefarces,poetry, and novels,and illustrating books and
periodicals.They moved in the overlappingworlds of literature, fine arts,
the theatre,exhibitions,and pageants.They poked fun at socialconvention
and class,and inveighed against such vices as fraudulence,hypocrisy, and
obscurantism.Their periodical was strong on politics and dominated by
discussionof the celebrated,notorious, and newsworthy m€n of the d^y -
thus making Puncha periodicalwritten largelyby men for a predominantly
male audience.
roz Sciencein the IVineteenth-Century
Perioclical
'Punch
The Brotherhood' was weakenedby bitter rivalries - notably
betweenThackerayand Jerrold- and occasionaldisruptions (for .""*p1.,
the Catholic Richard Doyle resignedin r85c owing to Punc/t'swaspish
satireson papal aggression),but Mark Lemon was generallysuccessfulin
engenderingharmony among Punchstaff.Changesin the group, however,
affectedthe tone of the periodical.The changesberweenthe r84osand early
rB6osnoted abovewerein part due to the loss,by eitherdeathor resignation,
of many of the initial contributors including Jerrold, Thackeray,Rchard
Doyle, Gilbert Abbott ) Beckett, and Albert Smith. The evolution of the
magazine's content led EdmundYates,the editor of TbmpleBar, to assertin
'wit,
t8Q that Punch had lost the humour) and pointed sarcasmof former
years'andhad degenerated into'sheer,wilful nonsense'.34But its sustained
circulation figures suggestthat by the mid-r86os a new qFpeof reader
enjoyed the subtle socialwit of Shirley Brooks, the grotesquecartoons of
Du Maurier, the supremedraughtsmanshipof Tenniel'spolitical cuts, and
the work of the other rising starsof mid-Victortan Punc/t.
Despite the recognition that Punch'sbrotherhoodwas crucial to the suc-
cessof the periodical,little attention hasbeen paid to the question of how
this social group negotiated the contents of each week'sissue.Although
most Punch articleswere either anonymous or written from the perspec-
'Mr.
tive of Punch', ledger books held in rhe Punch library in London
enable us to identift writers and artists and thus deepen our analysisof
this literary group.stA preliminary survey of these ledgerssupports the
argument that contributors with medical and scientificbackgroundswere
the foremost producersof the periodical'scommentarieson science.36 For
example,John Leech, Albert Smith, and PercivalLeigh had been fellow
studentsat St Bartholomew'sHospital, and they contributed most of the
cartoons(in the caseof Leech)and texts (in the casesof Smith and Leigh)
on medicalstudents,medicallegislation,and quackery.37Contributors who
lacked a scientific background constituted a smallerbut not insignificant
portion of the creatorsof Punclt'sscientificcontent. For thesewriters and
artists, information about sciencewas just as accessibleas gossip about
politics and fashion, and could likewise be satirized.A good example is
Punch'sseccnd editor, Shirley Brooks, who abandoneda legal careerfor
journalism in the early r84os,and subsequentlyearnedan income asa par-
liamentary and travel reporter on the Morning Chronicle and as a writer
of comic journalism and stagefarces.In r85r he began writing for Punch
where he published satiricalpoems and news commentariespertaining to
science,gleaninginformation from readingnewspapers,hobnobbing with
scientificpersonalities,and visiting metropolitan sitesof scientificactiviry.
 Comic i ournalism;Punch ro3

His biographerrecordsthat, in the r87os,Brooks developedan acquain-

rancewith the zoologistThomas Henry Huxley and the sciencer,vriterJohn
GeorgeWood. He also attended the Royal GeographicalSocierysdebate
on the expedition to observethe transit of Venus in 1882,and dined with
the explorer Henry Morton Stanleyand the biologist St GeorgeJackson
Mivart. Having read Richard Owen's January fi74 letter to the Timesdis-
missing news of the discoveryof a dodo, h. scribbledthe comic poem,
'The Dodo Demolished',which
subsequentlyappearedin Punch.lsBrooks
was one of many Punch contributors *ho a stock of material
"..,t-rlated
for scientificjournalism through such contacts,and whosecareersillustrate
the overlapberweenGrub Streetand scientificLondon.
Another insight into the we.kly businessof producing a comic journal
is afforded by the dtary of Henry Silver, who recorded his experiencesat
the weekly Punch dinners between1858and fi7o.le The discussions,dis-
agreements,and anecdoteshe documentedillustratethat Punc/tmen were
surprisinglyknowledgeableabout scientific developmentsand frequently
engagedwith them intelligently and penetratingly.Around the large deal
table,where food, wine, cigars,jottings, and newspaperscirculated,Mark
'Professor'
Lemon recountedhis meetingswith GeorgeStephenson, Percival
'lectured'
Leigh on phrenology,and others pondered such dramatic news
as Robert Fitzroy'ssuicide.aoThese interestsand passionswere reflected
in the seriousand informed way in whi ch Punc/t contributors frequently
engagedwith scientificnews.
How Punch contributors worked together to turn scientific news into
an article is illustrated by the following extract from Silver'saccount of the
'large
cut' meeting of 9 April 186z:

S[hirley]B[rooks]proposes Gladstonemakinga houseof cards.But all agreethat

the Iron Shipsquestionis the one.Sotakehis VulcanandNeptunenotion of last
week,which J[ohn] L[eech]modifiesinto sea-nymphs armingNeptuneasJohn
Bull. P[ercival]L[eigh] proposesshoeingthe Seahorses,but negatived.M[ark]
L[emon]suggests Britanniain Crinoline- but this repeatsthis week's'Jackin
Iron'.4t

For most of those present at this dinner, Gladstone'sbudget speechwas

far lessimportant than the government'srecent decision to savethe Royal
N"ty by replacingits vulnerablewooden ships with state-of-the-artiron-
clads.Brooks's,Leech's,and Leigh'sproposalsweresoon rejected,but Punch
contributors'support for iron shipswasso strongthat they adoptedan alter-
nativerepresentationof the anticipated'metallic' stareof the Royal N"ty -
a cartoon of severalsailorsdancing below deck in suits of armour.4'
ro4 Perioclical
Sciencein the lVineteenth-Century

The deliberationsover iron ships highlight the journalistic preoccupa-

tions and skills of Punch'swriters and artists their insatiable drive to
representtopical and spectacularissues,and their selectionof topics that
'the
were appropriate for stageof Punc/t'stheatre' (to cite Mark Lemon's
phrase).a3 Silver'sobservationsdocument the immersion of Punc/t contrib-
utors in worlds of mid-Victorian comedy and metropolitan science.In
bridging theseworlds they drew on their masteryof the comic literary and
graphical techniqueswell understood and enjoyed by Victorian readers,
and on their acquaintancewith contemporary scienceand scientists.In
discussingiron ships they exploited stock aspectsof Victorian comedy by
articulating many falsecongruitiesand unlikely associations. The comic ef-
fect of juxtaposingsymbolsof, on the one hand, the mythological, angelic,
and conservative,and on the other, the novel, material, and progressive,
underpinned the idea of Britannia in a crinoline. As Leslie Stephencom-
'farce-
mented in his fi76 analysisof humour, the world was regardedasa a
melancholy farce,indeed, for otherwisetherewould be no contradiction -
but a farce where the sublime must never be separatedfrom its shadow,
the ridiculous' .+4Later in this chapter,we will seethat Stephen'sanalysis
of farceappliesto most articlesin Punch.

PUAICH,S KIND OF SCIENCE

The foregoing analysisof eventsat the Punch table shows how the cornic
journalistic goalsand interestsof the periodical'scontributors shapedthe
content of one article. This sectiontakesa much broader approachto the
question. It examinesbroad patterns in the scientific content of the first
thirty years of Punch and looks at the way in which these trends reflect
Punch contributors' preoccupationswith comedy,topicaliry,spectacle,the
vicissitudesof social,political, and cultural life, and the heroic, ingenious,
hypocritical, and corrupt aspectsof the Victorian landscape.This section
also identifies and analyzesthe locations of scientific material within the
periodical format of the leading Victorian comic journal. lJnlike many
'Puncht
other topics coveredrn Pwnch,suchas the long-running Essence
'Fine
of Parliament' or the regular Arts' articles that appearedin the early
r84os,there were no dedicatedscientificcolumns. Instead,scientific mat-
erial was spread over a wide vanety of literary and graphic genres, in-
cluding commentarieson scientificnews reportedelsewhere,spoof reports
on science,mock proceedingsof learnedsocieties,pseudonymousletters,
'cuts',
poems, songs,large and small burlesquesof seriahzedfiction and
stagedramas,illustratedvignettesand illuminated letters,jokes,puns, and
 Comicf ournalism:Punch rot
'ephemera',
other column-filling and spoof advertisements(many of which
poked fun at the very kinds of new medical treatmentsand contraptions
that Punch advertisedon its wrappers)(fig. 4.4).
In Punch the news commentary was the most prevalent genre for dis-
'scientific'articles
cussingscience;of 6,zoo publishedduring the first three
decades,there were z,zoo news commentaries,compared with 7zo ca.-
toons, jzo comic poems,{oo mock letters,z6o spoof advertisements, and
r8o droil songs(all figuresbeing approximate).Scientifictopics rarely fea-
'large
tured in the weekly centrepiece- the cut' - and they were even less
likely to appearin such other covetedplacesason the title pagesof bound
volumes.Nonetheless,the foregoing figuresgive powerful support to the
argument that Punch'sscientificmaterial - like so much of its other con-
tent - was strongly dependenton what was being reported, displayed,or
'scientific'
gossipedabout elsewhere.A article alsooften combined literary
genres- for instance, Tvignetteillustration that prefaceda poetic paro dy,^
spoof news report that was followed by a pseudonymousletter, or a poem
'sci-
that was in fact a commentary on an actual item in a newspaper.Few
entific' articles tn Punc/t exrstedin isolation and were usually in dialogue
with articlesappearingin the sameor earlierissues,or with entirely separate
publications. For example,an rStt poem describingFaradaysanalysisof
the Thames water was positioned next to John Leech'slarge cut of Fara-
'Father
d^y confronting a gruesome Thames' emerging from his equally
'The
filthy river.a5Lessstraightforwardwas the r8i3 spoof prospectusfor
Locomotive Table Company'. This explainedthat following proof of 'the
faciliry with which Thblescan be moved by meansof a Company, through
merevolition, after the handsof the Compan)/havebeenplacedfor a short
time on the Thble',the'Company'believed it could'supersedeSteamEn-
'where
gines on Railways'by placing a table the engine is at present, in
'a
front of the train' and having certain number of the Directors of the
Company. . . seatedat a board in connexionwith it; which will insure that
additional guaranteeof saferyso much wanted on railroads'.46 The comedy
dependedon an explicit referenceto the motive force supposedlyexerted
'table-turning'-
by individuals participating in a practicemuch derided in
-
Punch but an implicit allusion to a John Leech cartoon published a few
weeksearlier,showing a proposedmethod of reducing railway accidents:
qving two railway company directors to the front of a steam locomotive
operatedby their frrm.a7
In general, Punch focusedon thosescientifictopics that its contributors
thought would entertain and provoke a resp..r"bl. male and merropoli-
tan readership.This audiencewasparticularlyawareof thoseareasof science
 l -

ro6 Sciencexn the |Vineteent/t- Century PeriodicaI

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Figure 4.4. The wrappers of Punch for r4April 1849contain puffs for various medical
'Balsam
products including the Copaiba' patent organic capsulesfor remedying nausea
(in the left column), a textbook on hydropathy and an'Invisible Spine Supporter' (in the
middle column), and the'Pomade Depurative'for curing baldnessand the'Amandine'
hand-softening treatment (in the right column). Reproduced by permission of Richard
Noakes.
 : Punch
Comici ournalism ro7

that were prominently discussedor displayedelsewhere,or that possessed

generalintellectualinterest or had direct implications for health, securiry,
and daily life. Punch often selectedfor comment scientificissuesthat were
newsworthy; thus a cluster of articlesmight closelytrack the development
of ascientificevent familiar to most readers.For example,the rBit cluster
of articleson military technology followed rumours concerning a secret
weapon devisedby Lord Dundonald to defeat the Russian Fleet in the
Crimea; and the 186r cluster on animal behaviour followed the French-
American explorer Paul Du Chaillu's claims regarding the aggressivebe-
haviour of African gorillas.Scientificarticlesrarelycontain.d just scientific
material.Indeed, the comedy of Punch often dependedon mixing incon-
gruoussubjects,suchasstatesmenand medicalquackery,steamlocomotives
and spiritualism,or civil servantsand the behaviourof entozoa.
'pure'
Particularly prominent among the scientific topics discussed
in Punc/t'sfirst three decadeswere animal behaviour and development,
zoolory, astronomy, analytical and industrial chemistry, human develop-
ment, natural history, and electriciry.These topics impinged most exten-
sivelyon the livesofreaders,eitherbecausetheywereintellectuallyaccessible
or stimulating, or becausethey possessed implicationsfor the readers'daily
routines. Natural history, for example,was often discussedin relation to
amateurcollecting activities;analyticalchemistry frequendy occurred in the
context of polluted water; and electricityrypically appearedin discussions
of telegraphyand new electricalmachines.The coverageof the physical sci-
ences,and the more technicalaspectsof all the sciences, was unsurprisingly
small for a journal that sought to hold the attention of non-specialistintel-
ligent read.ers.Indeed,the,rrost common causefor discussingsuch abstract
scientificissueswas to poke fun at scientificpractitioners'obscurantism.
Medical and technologicaltopics were far more prevalent tn Punch than
'pure'
the sciences,let alonethe technicallymore demanding scientificsub-
jects. This concentration lends further support to the claim that Punch
was mainly interestedin those scientific topics that were most familiar
or relevant to readers.Among the most common subjectsof discussion
were the fair and foul deedsof medical practitioners(physicians,surgeons,
nurses,and quacks), new medical legislation, novel remediesand other
treatments,questions of public health, sanitation, and disease,railways
and steam locomotives (especiallyas the causeof commercial manias, zc-
cidents,and environmentaldamage),ironcladsand other new weaponsof
war, the electrictelegraph,steamships,balloons,spectacularnew engineer-
ing structures,and the ingenious and disingenuousaccomplishmentsof
inventors.
ro8 Sciencein tbe IVineteenth-CenturyPeriodical

As we sha1lsee throughout the remainderof this chapter,rhe notorious

interestsof Punch contributors in anything that exposedoddities of so-
cial convention and classor which smackedof fraudulence,obscuranrism,
and hypocrisy alsoinformed their choiceof scientifictopics for discussion.
Thus, there are plenty of humorous articlesreflecting on the possiblead-
vantagesof steamlocomotivesand the electrictelegraphto the routines of
political and domesticlife, the inability of rustics,old sea-salts,and cock-
neysto come to terms with new inventions,and the curious behaviourand
languageof delegates at meetingsof scientificsocieties.Similarly,the appar-
ently shady individuals whom Punch contributors denounced so passion-
ately at their weekly dinners were targetedfor much sober-tonedcriticism
in print. Quacks, dissolutemedical students,mercenaryrailway company
directors, inventors of dubious machines,astrologers,and spirit-rappers
were caricaturedand demon tzedfor much the samereasonthat Punch con-
tributors inveighed againstgreedyaldermen,misguided statesmen,hypo-
critical journalists,avariciousmerchants,and corrupt priests.as
These explanationsof Punch'schoice of scientific topics also accounr
for the scientificpractitioners,places,and publicationsfeaturedin articles
and illustrations.Although patriotism may explain the repeatedreferences
to such British scientific worthies as IsaacNewton, Edward Jenner, and
George Stephenson,at least as much material was devoted to scientific
personalitieswho would have been familiar to metropolitan readers,such
asRichard Owen, Michael Faraday,CharlesDarwin, Charles Babbage,and
GeorgeAiry. Punch also coveredlesser-knownscientificpersonalitieswho
burst into the news for a variery of savouryor unsavoury reasons.Thus,
there areaplethora of articleson, or allusionsto, JarnesGlaisherand Henry
Coxwell and their heroicballoon ascents,David BoswellReid and his much-
ridiculed apparatusfor ventilating the Palaceof \Testminster,and Cowper
Coles and his armoured turret for iron shipsthat was, accordingto Punch,
shamefully neglectedby the Admir"lqF. Punc/t'sengagementswith storiesof
theselesser-knownpersonalitiesdid not simply reflectthe news,but acrively
contributed to the fame or notoriery of theseindividuals. Puncbs frequent
allusions to the Zoological Gardensat Regent'sPark, to the Crystal Palace,
London's hospitals, the Royal Collegesof Surgeonsand Physicians,the
Royal Polytechnic Institution, the Royal Greenwich Observ atory, '\7yld's
Great Globe', and the SocialScienceCongress,againreflectthe interestsof
the periodical'slargelymetropolitan audience.Referencesro now-forgotten
sites of spectacularnew engineeringdevelopments,filthy workhousesor
polluting factories,or bird-slaught.iirtg gt; clubs, also underl tnePunch's
closeconcernwith institutions that might improve or har:mthe minds and
bodiesof readers.
 Comic i ournalism: Punch ro9
Referencesto published works included many rc new scientific books
(notably the Wstigesof rhe Jvatural Historlt
{ Creation (t8++), Darwin's
Origin { Species(t859), and Du Chaillu's Explorationsancl Aduenturesin
EquatorialAfrica Q86r)).Yet in comparison*ith the 3oo-odd referencesro
scientificmonographs,pamphlets,and other publishedworks in the period
from t94t to r87r, there were nearly 7oo referencesro scientifi. p.riodicals
(notablythe Lancet)or scientificdiscussionsthat appearedin g.^.r"1 peri-
odicals.Thus, as far as scienceis concerned,Punch drew *oi hearrilyo'
periodicalsthan on books. This analysisalsosupportsBrooks'scontention
that Punch'setits watch by the clock of The Times'sinceapproximatelyone
third of the referencesto scientificmaterialsin periodi.Jr were to articles
in the leading London daily. The dialogu. b.t*. en Punch andother news-
paPerswas, of course,rwo waY,as illustrated by the occasionallystinging
exchangesberweenPunch and such dailies as the Morning Post,and more
flatteringly,the Timeisregular inclusion of small extractsfro- punch.4e Al-
though Punch often made explicit the sourceson which it dreq references
weresometimesmerely implicit. This is powerfully illustratedby the 'Mon-
keyani poem which was published in Punch on 18 M"y 186r. 1.n. poem
endedwith the non-referencedphrase,""Io rwice slay th. ,l"irr"', which
many readerswill have recognrzedasthe last line in a l.it., that Huxley had
written to the Athenaeumfivedaysearlier.toThus, the comprehensibiliryof
Punch'sscientific articles,like the rest of its material, oft.r depend.i
o.,
readers'familiarrty with a broad range of periodicals.

T'V7ISTING SC I E N T I F I C I{E\TS

Although su-rveyof the contents and literary and graphic forms of

" science
tn Punch is valuable,we also need to appreciatethJ.o-plex ways in
which
individual scientificarticlesfunctio".d- This secriontakesa closer
'scientific' look at
several texts and illustrations from Punch'sfirst three decades.I
shallexplorehow newswasre-presentedand adaptedfor enrerrainment
and
instruction, and how sciencewas appropriatedir ord.r ro enablepunch
to
survivein the cut-throat world of mid-Victorian Grub Street.Throughout
thefollowing discussion,we will seethat Punchsengagementwith
scientific
topicswas not superficial.It dependedon and t.irt$tced sober
and often
profound perceptionsconcertitg the placesand usesofscience
in Victorian
cuiture.

Remaking scientifc netrs

Punclt'scommentarieson scientificnewsvariedconsiderably
in tone, length,
and content. After presentingreaderswith the outlines
of a scientific news
 3 I

Period.ical
Sciencein the lYineteenth-Century
1ro
item (usuaily from a named source)or quotations from another publica-
rion, contriburors to Punch qrptcallyaddedexpressions of anger,adulation,
bewilderment, or amusement,often with allusionsto themesalreadyartic-
ulated by the periodical.The following examplefrom an 1858instalment of
'Essence
the of Parliament'illustrateshow political debatesbearing on sci-
entific topics provided ample materialfor Punchto vent its spleenabout the
more reprehensibleaspectsof science.He rc Punch rcminded readersthat
\Tilliam Cowper'sMedical Reform Bill was being readfor the secondtime
'Mr.
in the House of Commons, but then pointed out that Punch intends
to move a clauseempowering a Magistrateto order anyAdvertising Quack
'Nothing
to be flogged, and branded with a Q, explaining that: short of
this will stop the murderous systemof heartlesstraders in misfortune.'i'
The efforts of other scientific practitionersto treat the body politic were
representedwith much more warmth. In 1855,for example,Punch praised :j
i
'l
Michael Farad"fr use of analytical chemistry to addressone of the most atr

intractable public health problems - the foul state of the River Thames.
,u

After the savant published a letter in the Timesannouncing his discovery

;
of myriad unwholesomeconstituentsin the capital'sriver, Punch hailed the
'CrrnvrrcAl.
letter as a work of small sizeand great importance' that would
'effect
eventually a saving of life still greaterthan that which has resulted
from his predecessor's [Humphry Davy's] safety-lln.p'.52
Punchwasfar lessimpressedwith individualswho, from reportsin other
periodicals,appearedto be hoodwinking the British public with their ap-
parently dubious inventions supported by unsound arguments.On these
occasions Punch adoptedits idiosyncraticmode of arbitration. In October
t8 j7 , for example,it was so puzzledby a descriptionin the Timesof John
de la Haye'smethod for submergingsubmarinecablesthat it comparedthe
'the The project involved coating
invention ro devicesof the Laputan sages'.
telegraphlines with a mysteriouscompound which delayedthe descentof
the cablesto the seafloor, but Punch pointed out that whatever the nature
of the compound, it would be washed off by the Atlantic's large waves.
Punch sought to exposetechnological fraud with comedy, and suggested
that de la Haye'sproposalwaspossible,but only if impracticableconditions
'Iced
were met - the cablesshould be coatedwith vastquantitiesof cream'
and the Atlanric should be dead calm.t3The theme of obscurantismap-
pearedagain in 1865when Punch notedthat a recentissueof the Mechanics'
Magazine contained a puzzling extract from the French scientific period-
lthe mechanical
ical Cosmosdescribing how a savant had calculatedthat
't,zi9
equivalentof the ,or"l light of the sun' was septillion of "bougies"'.
'lucid' 'arithmetical
Thir news item ril/asneither nor useful becausewhen
 Comicj ournalism: Punch III

athletes. . . distort themselvesby piling up theseabsurd heapsof millions

anCbiilions. . . no one caresabout givinghimselfthe trouble,eitherto ver-
ify, or disprovethem' .i4 Punclt contributorswere,of course,not themselves
exemptfrom abusinglanguagesince they exploitednew scientificterms as
'science
rich sourcesof puns and word pl^y. For example,a Gossip' col-
umn of 1868announced that A Scientific Ghost-storywill shortly appear
in fortnightly numbers, founded on SpectrumAnalysis'.5i
It is hardly surprising that a periodical so preoccupiedwith news and
comedy should contain many spoof news reports. These satiricalreports
presenteda newsworthy or familiar topic from a new and comic perspec-
rive, typically by associatingthe topic with other, and often incongruous,
themes.As the following examplesillustrate,sciencewas often the primary
topic of discussionor was woven into a report of what was an ostensi-
bly non-scientific issue.An astonishing range of topics was featured in
'The
the Irish Yahoos'appearingin mid-December 186r.This far-fetched
'Pope's 'Irish
report describeda to*dy -..rirrg at the Head"'where the
'
Yahoos'had convened to express joy and exultation' at England's immi-
nent involvement in the American Civil Var and the anticipated large
'chaired'
number of casualties.The mob was by the appropriatelynamed
'O'DoxocHyAHoo' 'hailed
whose criesof abuseagainstthe English were
with frantic howling and peals of convulsivelaughter, like that of a multi-
'calamities
tude of idiots'.After gloating on the they expect[.d] for England'
'several
the meeting ended with rounds of hurroos for the Popn' and then
yelping,whining, and howling, after the manner of the canine species,ro
which the Yahoo is nearly allied, being a creatureberweenthe mongrel and
'report'
the baboon'.t6This featured the common srereorypeof the Irish
aswild animals but here Punch'sracism was linked, implicitly and explic-
itly, with myriad other themes including Jonathan Swift's bestial 'Yahoos',
Britain'sgrowing hostiliry to America, the evilsof Roman Catholicism, and,
most significantly,to Paul du Chaillu's recent account of the aggressivena-
ture of African gorillas and Darwinian theoriesof man's simian ancestry.t7
Despiteits obvious comic format, this spoof news reporr powerfully illus-
tratesPunclt'sactive participation in debatesover the possiblemeanings of
science.
News of non-scientific eventsprovided further opportunities for Punch
contributors to analyze the cultural usesof science.This was particularly
common during discussionof allegedmiraculous and supernaturalph.-
nomena. For example, Punch contributors seizedon occasionalreporrs
of the apparentliquefaction of the blood of Saint Januariusin Naples. In
OctoberrBy9,for instance,it insistedthat this'so-called"miracle"'ctuld be
rtz Sciencein the IVineteenth-CenturyPeriodical
'dead 'science',
achievedwith greaterrapidiry and certainqF'by using steam,
'appearance'
bellows, or a hot poker. Moreover, the allegedsimultaneous
of the Januariusmiracle and the appearanceof the saint'sblood in Puzzoli
(wherethe saintwasbeheaded)could be 'guaranteed'by connectingNaples
'clearly
and Puzzoli by electriciqy.Belief in such miracleswas incompatible
'In
with scientific knowledge' because placeswhere the steam-enginehas
never been inspected,and where electric telegraphrare utt erly undreamr
of, their agenciesmight readily affect a so-thought "miracle", and deceive
the eyesightsblinded by the darkenedsuperstitionswhich are the stock-in-
trade and groundwork of the Romish Church.'58On such occasions,when
the social order was threatenedby tricks perpetratedby cunning priests
or other charlatans,Punch writers penned forcef,ulendorsementsof the
superioriqFof science. Scienceand engineeringcould be recruited to rein-
force cultural contrastsmade more explicitly elsewherein the periodical.
Drawing on suchgrand spectacles asthe GreatExhibition of r8tr, contribu-
tors to Punc/t revelledin the marvelsof scienceand engineeringwhich, they
considered,not only enhancednational pride and confirmed their faith in
progress,but alsodemonstratedBritain'ssuperiorityover other nationsand
the supremacyof Protestantsover Catholics.

I Ilustrating sci ence/politi cs

Illustrations were crucial to the overall appealof Punch and to the variery it
offered its readers(fig. 49. Ranging from tiny illustratedvignettesto the
week'slarge cut, Punc/t'sillustrationsrepresentsome of the most complex
engagementswith sciencein the periodical.Articles were often illustrated
'illuminated'
by visual vignettesor lettersthat evokedcomic scenes.Thus
a sober 186rdiscussionof the sensationaltrial of a pharmacistwas headed
by cartoon showing a quack about to introduce a dubious-looking tablet
"
into the mouth of a frightened patient.tuR.presentationsof sciencewere
often made in the small engravings,which occupied between a quarter and
half a page. Like other Punch material, these illustrations often explored
the comic impact of the eccentricworld of scienceand scientistson social
'Quite
convention. This is succinctly illustrated in Leech's a Novelry' of
'Amiable
rSi4,which showsan Experimentalist'sitting down to dinner with
friends in a room whose walls are adornedwith pictures of fungi. Much to
the distasteof his gueststhe eccentricsavantenthusiasticallyprovidesthem
with technical and stomach-churningdescriptionsof the mushrooms they
are all about to eat.6o
n1 Sciencein the lVineteenth-CenturyPeriodical

Other Punchartistsweremore renownedfor using caricatureto reinforce

the dangers, ingenuiqy,and sheerdrama of the personalities,practices,and
products of science.This is evident in an 1845illustration of what Punch
thought Great Britain would look like rn t847: developingits cynical view
'benefits'
of the conferred by expandingthe railway nerwork, it showed the
country entirely coveredwith railroads.6'Other examplesareDu Maurier's
satireon Darwinian evolution portraying a zookeeper's nightmare in which
the different speciesof animals have exchangedheads,and Charles Ben-
nett's busy cartoonsof the mid r86os that caricatureddelegatesat British
Associationmeetingsasthe subjectsof their papers.6'In all thesecases,the
standardtechniquesof graphic satire- exaggeration,reversal,and incon-
gruous juxtaposition - were used to spectaculareffect.Thus in one of his
cartoons Bennett drew scientistswith large headsatop emaciatedbodies,
whilst riding, clutching, and embodying the instruments of their trade:
the optical expert David Brewster rode a pair of spectacles,the chemist
\Tilliam Crookes upheld, and balancedon, fasks containing his new car-
bolic spray,and the astrophysicistVilliam Huggins was shown clutching
a chemical balanceand jar, and sporting an enormous spectroscopeprism
for a head,the symbolsof the opti."l-chernical appro".hio celestiatotlects
(fig. 4.6). In a later cartoon Bennett further exploitedreportsof the British
Association drama by showing Thomas Henry Huxley and Richard Owen
locked in an affectionate embrace - thus satirizing their widely known
antipathy.
Bennett'scaricaturesare significant in the early history of Punclt because
they were among the few illustrations that depicted identifiable scientific
personalities.Rarelywere individual scientistsportrayed in the week'slarge
cut. Savantswho did enjoy such prominent representation- including
Richard Owen and Michael Faraday -would previouslyhavebeen encoun-
tered by readersin illustrated periodicals,scientific memoirs, exhibitions
of portraits, photographic shops,and public lectures.6s In contrast to the
r84os, scientific personalitieshad by the r86os become far more familiar
to the public through illustrated media and public spectacle.Bennett, in
particular, exploited this increasedvisibility of scientistsin his cartoons.
Scientific subjectsdid not often fcature in the large weekly cur, the ex-
ceptions being mesmerism,railway mania, the Dover-Calais and Atlantic
submarinetelegraphr,the disease-ridden Thames,solareclipses, Armsrrong
heavy artillery, the controversy over gorillas and man's simian ancestry,
the hatching of pphon eggs at the Zoological Gardens, and the Cattle
Plague.6+ Th.se topicswere chosenfor their currenr newsworthiness- thus
displacinglessexciting political and socialsubjects- and becausesome of
II5 Periodical
Sciencein the IVineteenth-Century

them werevisual enough to make for powerful graphicre-presentation.Yet,

like most illustrations tn Punch, there are plenqy of large cuts that defi. a
'scientific' 'non-scientific'.
straightforwarddistinction between and Indeed,
it is the cuts that blend scientificand non-scientificmaterial that illusffate
most powerfully how Punchcontributorsdevelopedcommentarieson non-
scientific topics by associationwith scientific subjects,and vice versa.A
striking example is John Tenniel's Another Eclipse for India' , a large cur
appearingin Punch for t September1868(fig. 4.).6t The main caption
would have reminded readersof the astronomicalevent of the year - the
solareclipseof 18August that wasbestobservedfrom India. The cartoon,the
restof the caption,and, aboveall, a poem appearinga few pagesafter the cut,
would havehelpedreadersto understandthe allusionsin the illustration and
reflecton the similariry betweenrecentastronomicaland political events.66
The cartoon shows the allegoricalfigure of India crouching in fear of the
shadow of a man wearing an enormous cocked hat, and John Lawrence,
'India'
the Viceroy and Governor-Generalof India, who reassures that she
'light' 'eclipse'
need not fearher being extinguishedby the other becauseit
is only being causedby Lord Mayo, who had recentlybeen announced as
Lawrence'ssuccessorand who promised to continue Lawrence'srecord of
raising the socio-economicstatusof Indi" by developingits resourcesand
improving its administration. Tenniel'scartoon createdanalogiesbetween
the sun and India, and betweenthe moon and Mayo, and however much
readersmay havedismissedsuchanalogiesasthe product of a comic artistic
imagination,the cartoonwasone of manywaysin which Punchparticipated
in creatingand propagatingknowledg. of a scientificevent.

Re-presentingingenui4t and questioningprogress

\When Punch writers parodied the literary genres of science they were
simultaneously mocking scientific practitioners themselves. Drawing
heavily on the conventionsof scientificsatireestablishedin such works as
'Mudfog
Martinus Scriblerusand Charles Dickens's Papers',these writers
poked fun at scientificstereoqFpes for their unconventionalbehaviour,pom-
posiry, obsessiveinterest in trivial details,and their pursuit of apparendy
implausibleresearchprojects.Few occasionsprovided richer material than
the annual meetingsof the British Associationfor the Advancementof Sci-
ence.unlike most other eventsin the scientificcalendar,British Association
meetingswere widely reported in the pressand would have been familiar
to most Punchreaders.Moreover,its meetingswere repletewith the pomp,
personalities,and pageantrythat Punchwriters were expert at turning into
IIB Sciencein tbe JVineteenth-Century
Perioclical
humorous material.In the r84os Punch publishedseveralspoof proceedings
of the British Association which were timed to coincide with- the
meetingin late summer.The fi$ serieson the 'BrightishAssociation".rn.r-"l
for the
Advancementof Everything' containedthe key elementsof scientificsatire
that Punch would develop further over the next thirry years.The 'proceed-
ings' of the meeting developedseveralcomic contrasts,norably betweenthe
notoriously lof,y tone and absurdcontent of papersdelivered,and berween
the sublime aspirationsof scientificmen and the utterly trivial, chimerical,
or abstruseproducts of their labours.Thus tn Punch's'Mathematical and
PhysicalSciences'section a 'Dn- SpncrnuM' presenreda paper on the ap-
parently important topic of the 'Presenceof PrismaticColo1rrrin Potaro.i',
which describedthe 'prismaticcolours'presentedto the eyeand the purple
colour imparted to the eyelid when the author was struck in the .y. by
flying Potato.6zL1k other humorous articles, Punc/t'ssatiresof the Britirh"
Associationevokedcontemporarythemesfamiliar ro the reader.For exam-
ple' in 1843Punch informed its readersthat Alfred Bunn, the impresario
whose plays were a recurrent sourceof ridicule, had undertaken
futile task: at the forthcoming British Associationmeeting h. would "noth.,
'the read
report of the Committee for the Reduction of Stars on a Method
of Hypothetical Representation,as applied ro Impossible Results, by
PnopnssoRMuooLuwrrz'.68 Parodiesof scientificreporrsalso gavepunih
contributorsrichlite raryresources for questioningthe benefits expertise
""d
of social rypes ot/terthan scientific savants.A hilarious exampleis 'Political
Zoology: The Red-Tapeworm'of Februaryr8tt in which Pinch combined
a powerful reminder of the dry and esotericsryle of natural historical de-
scription with another swipe at the bureaucratswhom it clearly believed
were chiefly resPonsiblefor the woeful stateof the British soldiersduring
the Crimean \Var. Introduced as 'T,e,xm OrprcrAlrs' rhe 'Red-Thpeworm-'
was characterrzedas'one of the entozoawhichinfest the body-poliiic' char-
actetizedby.'a strong aftachment to place, and where it once lodges, there
it sticks,with prodigious adhesiveness'. 'Like
mosr crearuresof low organ-
isation',it noted,

the Red-laPewormadmits of being cut up almost indefinitelywithout being

apParentlythe worse for the operation; its separateportions wriggling themselves
together again, and uniting, in a short time, as ifnothing h"J h"pip.n.d. The
processhas over and over again been performed by various journ"iirrr; but the
Red Thpeworm has hitherro survived the severestslashing.
symptoms produced by the Red-Tapeworm alarming weakness
Th. "r. "n
and wasting away, attended with confusion, and impairment of f"I.rlties and
 Comic jottrnalism: Punch n9

functionswhich it occupies,and which becomes,in the end, hopelesslyprostrated

by paraiysis,and sinks into collapse.The emaciationand atrophy of the rroops
beforeSebastopolhave been clearlytracedto the agencyof the Tenia Officialis.6t

Punc/t'sspoofs of scientificreports and proceedingsrypically presented

readerswith ambivalent imagesof science.On the one hand, they illus-
trated Punch contributors' admiration for scientificingenuiq.,which they
explicitly and soberlypraisedfor its power to vanquish such afflictions as
mortal disease,superstition,and internationalconflict. On the other hand,
Punc/t'sparodiesof scienceshowhow much contributorssharedthe Scrible-
rian anxierythat the reachof scientificpractitioners,engineers,and doctors
often appeareddangerouslyto exceedtheir grasp.ToThis tension berween
admiration and anxiety is succinctly displayedin an r84z parody of a sci-
entific report on the inane topic of buns, which included such pompous
'Naturalists
statementsas: having occasionally(very rarely) observeda sorr
of ossificationresemblinga currant upon the surfaceof the bun, were led
to undertake a mining speculation,for the discoveryof any of thesecuri-
ositieswhich might by chancebe concealedin the bowels.'7'Similarly, in
the same \learPunchcontributed to the relentlesstorrent of advertisemenrs
for railway schemeswith a puff for a railway from England to China. The
'passing
tunnel would reachfrom London to Canton through the centreof
the glob.', and the whole enterprisewas in the hands of the chief engineer
'Sinko
Shaft', whose trusrworthinesscould b. judged from his belief that
the centre of the globe is inhabited by peoplewho had fallen there during
earthquakes.T'
Punc/t'sambivalencetowards recent scientific developmentswas devel-
oped in a welter of spoof letters, poems, and songs. Spoof letters and
comic poems allowed Punch contributors to deliver their sharpestcriti-
cism and satire on sciencebecausethey could assumethe pseudonymous
persona of Mr Punch, or some other individual, animal, place, or inan-
imate object that praised,condemned, or reflectedon recent changesin
science.By adopting the sqFleof an obnoxious,arrogant,illiterate,or hope-
lesslymisguided character, Punclt could represent,ridicule, and promote
a range of (often extreme) positions on scientific developmentsfamiliar
to readers.Few issuesprompted this kind of responsemore forcefully
than news of technological development. Thke, for example, the differ-
ent assessments of technology developedin spoof letters from fi46 and
t866, the former from a yokel, and the latter from a 'disinterested'pro-
moter of gas lighting. The earlier letter was from 'Simon Hodgskirrr',
"
IZO Sciencein tbe lVineteenth-CenturyPeriodical

farmer of limited lite rary abiliry, .,vhoexplainedthat while reading a reporr

'took
of a recent meeting of the Roy"l Agricultural Soci.ry, he was aback
to read about all the noo implements for farmun as was show'd there; -
Nar-weegun Harrers, Hay-band-meakers,Pattent Haxuls'. He could not
'laafun'
help at new clod-crusherand corn-crushermachinesand, uphold-
'farm
itg tradition over innovation, invited Mr. Punch down to his in
Hampshur'and then'Thke aeta one of my carters,and if you dwoant say
that the best clod-crushersor corn-crusherseither be their bootsneveryou
trust SIMON HODGSKINS.'73 Punclt'sbourgeoisreaderswere implicitly
invited to dismissthe views of this muddled and ignorant scepticof tech-
nological development and instead to sympathtzewith the producers of
fashionablenew inventions.
Likewise,readerswere invited to opposeAudi Alteram Patrem',writing
to Punchtnr866,who reflectedon the newsthat the Housesof Parliamenr
had refusedthe Imperial GasCompan)ipermissionto build gasworksin the
lush surroundings of Victoria Park, Hackney tVick. Given Punc//s earher
praise for Parliament'sdecision, readersmight have assumedthat this was
another straightforward attack on polluting factories.Ta Closer reading of
the spoof letter, however, shows Punc/t'smore subtle way of questioning
technological development. Presentinghimself as an impartial onlooker,
the author explainedthat the defeatof the Imperial Gas Company had in-
spired Hackney \X/ick residentsto opposea parliamentarybill allowing the
'odorifer-
Gas Light and Coke Company to establishwhat they consideran
ous plant' near Victoria Park. The author'strue loyaltieswere soon revealed
'illuminating
when he praised London gas companies for their power',
'readiness
low-cost gas,moderateprofits, to accommodatethe public' and
'the
declaredhis support for interestsof a greatCompany' (the Gas Light
and Coke Compaty). Readers'sympathieswith the author would have
crumbled when he stated that he had advisedgas companies to try to
'Bill
keep their to erect Gasworks for that purpose out of the lists of
[Parliamentarfl Orders of the D"y that appear in the newspapers'.He
'choicest 'residual
alsoreminded Mr Punch that since scents'arisefrom the
products' of the Gas Light and Coke Company's works, such a gas plant
would have enhancedthe smell of flowers in the park. In conclusion, the
author suspiciouslyinsistedthat he had not been bribed by the Gas Light
'an
and Coke Company and was of course entirely disinterested party'.7t
By satirrzing and demonizing a promoter of gas-lighting, ?n individual so
'interested'
that he believed gascompanieswere actually doing local com-
munities a favour by polluting the air, Punch raised dilemmas faced by
many readerswho enjoyed gas-lightingand other technolcgical luxuries,
 Comicj ournalism: Punch TZI

and.presentedreaderswith one of its most subtle and powerful strategies

for debatingtechnologicalprogressper se.

.THE
CoNCLUSIoN: FIRST SCIEI{TIFIC JOURNAL OF THE O.tY,?

In her pioneeringstudy of Victorian readinghabits,Amy Cruse recalledan

anecdoteof a young girl who approachedBenjamin Disraeli and, despite
'I
having neverseenthe Conservativestatesmanbefore,said: know lou, I've
seenyou tn Puncl.t.'76 Shewas not the only personto believein a correlation
berween Punch artrclesand the real world. In 1883a very different reader,
'The
HenryJames,opined: accumulatedvolumesof this periodicalcontain
evidenceon a multitude ofpoints ofwhich thereis no mention in the serious
works - not even the novelsof the day.The smallestdetailsof social habits
are depicted there.' He also believedthat Punch's'ironicalview of these
things. . . doesnot injure the force of the testimony,for the irony of Punch,
strangelyenough, hasalwaysbeen discreetand delicate'.77Other Victorian
readerswould haveknown the personalitiesand'smallestdetails'of science
from reading Punch. Recent work by Janet Browne has emphasizedthe
exrent to which late-Victorian perceptionsof CharlesDarwin as a genial
sagedependedon caricaturespublishedtn Punchand other mass-circulation
'ironical
comic periodicals.Ts Punch writers and artists certainly took the
'things',
view' of scientific and used the techniquesof textual and graphic
'testimony'
sarireto achievetheir journalisticgoals.The resultwasdistorted
about science,but it wastestimony nonetheless, and everyweek it impacted
on severalhundred thousandVictorians.Te
This chapter has suggestedseveralways of understanding how these
Victorians understood sciencefrom reading comic periodicals.It has ex-
amined the complexitiesof satirizingsciencein the most celebratedof all
Victorian comic journals,from the kinds of scientificmaterialenriching the
varieqyof Punch to the complex ways in which the periodical contributors
'ironic'
imposedtheir views on this material.I havesuggestedthat the con-
tent and form of sciencein Punchweredeterminedby the journalistic preoc-
cupationsof the contributorswho soughtto entertainthe public eachweek.
Their socializingwith scientific personalities,their trawls through daily
papers,their discussionsaround the Punch table,and their private jottings
and sketchesusually resulted in far more than a superficial treatment of
scientific material for pure comic effect. Just as Punc/t contributors used
satireto make seriousmoral and intellectualpoints about thorny political
and religiousissues,so they exploitedcomedyto developseriousarguments
about the usesand abusesof science.I am not suggestitg,asdid Mr Punch
T7Z Sciencein the lVineteenth-Century
Periodical

in 186o,that Punchshouldbe recognizedas'thef;rst scientificjournal of the

d^y'; rather,I havearguedthat its iole in shapingand determining popular
knowledg. and opinions about scienceshould not be underrated.8o
Historians and sociologistsof sciencehavelong recogntzedthepowerful
role of rhetoric and other linguistic and visual techniquesof persuasionin
the construction of natural knowledge.stThesestudiesshow that many of
the common tropesofVictorian comic journalism- for example,caricature
and exaggeration- havebeenusedby scientiststhemselvesto convinceeach
other and their publics of the credibility of their scientific claims. Indeed,
scientiststhemselveswere not aboveexploiting scientific satiresin comic
journals in their own rhetorical strategies.In r9r9, for instance,the age-
ing physicist Lord Rayleigh addressedthe Society for PsychicalResearch
with a speechthat used a Punch cartoon of mesmerism to illustrate the
'public'
scepticalattitude of the mid-Victorian towards an obscurepsychi-
cal phenomenon that, Rayleighsanguinelynoted, had sincebecomemore
acceptableto medical practitioners.s'Rayleigh'sstraregyrevealshow im-
portant Punch and, for that matter, other comic periodicals,could be in
shaping the scientific discoursesof 6lite savantsas well as rhe knowledg.
of the mass-readingpublic. His useof Punchis a further reminder that far
more needsto be known about the placesand usesof sciencein nineteenth-
century comic periodicals.Systematicstudiesof the scientific material in
late-Victorian Punch and the welter of other Victorian comic journals
promisesto show in even greaterdetail the dependenceof satireson sci-
entific eventstaking place,and reported,elsewherein nineteenth-century
cultures; the entanglementof comic journalists and the increasinglypro-
fessionahzedcadre of scientific experts;and the relationship between the
public's changingperceptionsof scienceand what made them laugh.
 4. P UNC,H AND COMIC JOURNALISM IN
MID-VICTORIAN BRITAIN
'E.', 'The
r. Philosophy of Punchj, VestminsterReuieu 38 G8+z), z65118
Qt6-r).
I thank Patrick Leary,Jittr Paradis,and Ji- Secordfor their help in prep ara-
tion of this chapter.I am indebted to Patrick Learywho allo*ed me ro dr"*
on his^ulPublished researches on Punch. SeePatti.k Leary,'Table Talk and
Print Culture in Mid-Victorian Britain: Th e Punch Circle, r858-r8
74' (un-
published PhD dissertation,Universiry of Indiana, zooz). I would also like
to thank Helen Valasek and Brigitte Istim for their help in locat ing Punch
material. For permission to reproducematerial in their collections I thank
Punch Library, London. The sourceof attribution of Punch articles is from
the contributor s ledgerbooks held tn Punchlibrary. Throughout thesenores
Punchis abbreviatedas'P'.
L. Richard D. Altick, Puncb: The Liuefit Youthofa British Institution, fi4rt85r
(Columbus: Ohio StateUniversitypress, tgi), pp. r-4o.
 IVotesto pages%-94 27r

informativestudiesof Victorian Punchare:M. H. Spielmann,The

).The most 'Punch'(London:
Historyof Cassell,r8ll); CharlesL. Graves,Mr. Punchi Hh-
toryofModernEngland,4vols. (London: CasseII,ryzr-z); R. G. G. Price,A l{is-
tory of Punch(London: Collins, r9r); SusanBriggsand Asa Briggs(eds.), CoP
and,Bell: Punchi Chronicleof EnglishHistory in theMabing, r94r-fu (London:
Macdonald, ry72); Celina Fox, GraphicJournalismDuring the r83osand r84os
(New York: GreenwoodPress,1988);Altick, Punch.
'Satire
4.Altick, Punch,pp. tjz-6, 646-52;JamesG. Paradis, and Sciencein
Victorian Culture' in Bernard Lightman (.d.) , Victorian Sciencein Context
(Chicago:ChicagoUniversiqyPress,r99), pp. r+3-7t;JamesA. Secord,Vicro-
rian Sensation:The Extraordinary Publication, Reception,and SecretAuthorship
of rhe Wstiges{tbe lVatural History of Creation (Chtcago: Chicago Universiqy
Press,zooo),pp. 4j5-6o; Roy Porter,BodiesPolitic:Disease, Death,and Doctors
in Britain, 165o-1900 (London: Reaktion Books, zoor), z6z-7r (268);Richard
'Representing'A
Noakes, Century of Inventions":Nineteenth-CenturyTech-
nology and Victorian Punch',in LouiseI{enson, et al. (eds.), Cultureand Sci-
encein lVineteenth-Century Med.ia (Aldershot:AshgatePress,zoo4), pp. r5r-
62. Other discussionsof Punch, science,technolo6y,and medicine can be
found in Graves,Mr. Punch'sHistory,vol. I,pp.6r-8o, vol. II, pp. ry6-47,
vol. III, pp. r98-zra vol. IV, pp. r8r-93; Briggs and Briggs, Cop and Bell,
pp. ro6-7, zor-5;AsaBriggs,VictorianThings(London:Batsford,1988),p. l,8z;
'The 'Empry-Headed 'Sweet
and SuzanneLe-May Sheffield, Beaury' and the
Girl Graduate':Vomen's ScienceEducationin Punch,186o-189o',in Henson
et al. pp. ry-28.
,. See,for example,Anthony Wohl, Endangered. Liues:Public Health in Victorian
Britain (London: Dent, 1983);Briggs, VictorianThings.
6. PeterM. Sinnema, The Dynamics of the PicturedPage:Representing the lVation
'Illustrated
in the LondonIVeus'(Aldershot:Ashgate,1998),pp. r-2.
'ReviewArticle:
7. Roy Porter, Seeingthe Past',PAstand Present(February1988),
186-zo5; B. E. Maidment, Reading Popular Prints r79o-r870 (Manchester:
ManchesterUniversiry Press,1996),Second,Victorian Sensation.Citation from
Maidment, ReadingPopular Prints, p. rr. I am not suggestingthat we should
stop using Punch or any other comic periodical to gauge popular engage-
mentswith scientificculture: on the conffary, studiesby Martin Rudwick and
JanetBrowne persuasivelyarguehow much satiricalmaterial can revealabout
otherwiseundocumented attitudes towardsscientificenterprises:Martin J. S.
'Caricature
Rudwick, as a Source for the History of Science:De la Beche's
'squibs
Anti-Lyellian Sketchesof r83r', Isis66 Q97), 9+-6o; JanetBrowne,
and Snobs:Sciencein Humorous British UndergraduateMagazinesAround
r83o', History of Science)o (rggr), fi5-g7.
'Darwin
8. JanetBrowne, in Caricature:A Study in the Popularisationand Dis-
semination of Evolution', Proceedings of theAmericanPhilosophicalSociety45
(zoor), 496-roq (lol).
9. Altick, Punch,p. xix.
ro. Brooks cited in Briggs and Briggs, Cop anclBell p. xviii.
)a) IVotesto pagesg4-r0r

II. Fox, GraphicJournalism.

rz. In.this chapterI do not considerPunch'sAlmanacbsor the wrappersof indi-
vidual issuesof
the periodical.From fi46 theAlmanackswereitr".d separately
froT the periodical and so I treat them as an independent publication. For
analysisof Punch'sAlmanach seeMaureen Perkins, VisionsiTttrt Future: Al-
mznncs,Time and Cultural Changery75-r870(Oxford: Clarendon Press,1996),
pP.r4t*9. Punch'swrappersare not consideredowing ro the difficulry of ac-
cessingsuch rare material. However,a complete run of Punth with wrappers
is held'in the Punch Library and deservesdetailedanalysis.
13. Lesliestephen,
'Humour',
Cornhill Magazine33 ftg76), yg-26 (lr+).
14. See,for example,[Gilbert Abbott ) Beckett],'Tire Disadvantageioi Science',
P u (18+6),179,which discusses the electrictelegraphand the railwayswhile
'Hero
[DouglasJerrold], SurgeonS', P 18 (r8lo), irg, deemsmilitary r,rrg.or*
'people
to be of science'.
r t . Price,History{Punch, p.J7o.
6. Altick, Punch,p. xvii.
17. Fox, GraphicJournalism;David Kunzle, 'BerweenBroadsheetCaricature and
'Punch':
CheapNewspaperCuts for the Lo-werClassesin the r83os', ArtJournal
'The
+l Gg8), ng-+6; Amanda-JaneDoran, Developmenr of ,h. f,ril-f"g.
Vood Engravingin Punclt',lournaloflVeuspaperand Piriodical History
l Gggi),
+8-61; Marcus \7ood, Radical Satire and Print Cuhure ry90-r7zz- (Oxford:
Clarendon Press,1994);Maidment, Readingpopular prints.
1 8 . PatriciaAnderson, ThePrinted Imageand the TmnsformationofPopular
Cu7ure
179o-1860(oxford: Clarendon Press, r99r), pp. t6-$; M"idmenr, Reading
PopularPrints, pp. r4i-8.
19.
Ng.t _Cross, The Common Writer: Life in IVineteenth Century u Grub Sneet
(Cambridge:Cambridge Universiry Press,rg8l) .
z o . Paradis, 'science and Satire'; Porter, Bodies Politic; fuchard M. Koppel,
'E-nglish
Satireand Science, 166o-17jo' , unpublished PhD thesis,Unirr.rsiqy
of Rochesrer,New York, Ggfi).
zr. RichardD. Altick, 'Punch'sFirstTen Years:The Ingredienrsof Success' ,Journai
of Alewspaper and PeriodicalHistory f Gggi, 5-16l
) ) Altick, Punclt,p.
4.
2 3 . \food, Radical Satire,pp. z7o-r.
24. Cited in Arthur A. Adrian, Marh Lemon:First Editor of Punch (Oxford: Oxford
Universiry Press, 1966),p. t8.
2r. See,for examplg,[Anon.], 'British Associationfor the Advancemenrof Every-
in General,and Nothing in Particular',P 3 ft842),6-7; [Douglas
I!i"g
'British Jerrold],
and Foreign Destitute', P 6 ft844), ,3r.For Punch and,d,r.kirgh"-
seeAltick, Punth, pp. 617-+2.
26. irom Taylor], 'The Tluth afterThomsoo', p 6t (rg7r),62-3.
27. Fox, GraphicJournalism, pp.zr}-r9.
28. For Punch and Ireland see R. F. Foster, Paddy and Mr. Punch: Connec-
tions in lrish_and_English History (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, r99r),
pP. r7r-94- For Jews and the Victorian comic press r.. Atrthony S. \7oH,
 IYotestopagesrur-ro3 273

"'Dtzzi-Ben-Dizzr": Disraeli as Alien' , Journal 0f British Studies34 (tlgl),

165-4rr. For Punch on America and Roman Catholicism seeAlti ck, Punc/t,
pp.16l-79, 466-92.
29. See Alti ck, Punch, pp. 343-to, 683-6,698-7o7.
1 0 . Darwin to Huxl ey,zzM"y 186r,in FrederickH. Burkhardt,
Duncan Porter,Joy
Harvey, and Marsha Richmond (eds.), The Correspondence of CharlesDaruin,
volume tx, 186r (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,r99+), pp. r34-t
Gt+)-
31. Briggsand Briggs,C"p and Bell
(eds.),p. xxvi.
.,/) Basedon his analysisof the'paperand print' ledgerbooksin the Puncharchive,
) / J '

Patrick Learyhasclaimed that in the late r85osand earlyr86os,Punchachieved

lveekly salesof between 56,ooo and 6t,ooo: personalcommunication from
Patrick Leary. Circulation figures for Fun and Tbmahawkrn Alvar Ellegild,
Daruin and the GeneralReader:theReceptionof Darwin's Theoryof Euolution in
the British PeriodicalPress,r8y9-72 (Chicago: Chicago University Press,r99o),
pp. 374, 383.
1.,j.Seecomments of Mark Lemon recordedby Henry'Silver Silver in his Diary: Henry
Silver'sDiary, Punch Library, London (hereafter Diary'), entry for z7
June fi66. For recent explanationsof Punclt'ssuccessseeBriggs and Briggs,
Cop and Bell, pp. xiv-xv; Alti ck, Punth, pp. 4r-66; Cross, Common Writer,
p. ro7'
j4. [Andrew Halliday],'Comic Literature', TbmpleBar g (r86i.), t9o-l 3go). For
attribution seeSilverDiary, entry for 4 November 1863.
3t. Seenote r. The ledgerbookslist namesof authors,titlesof articles,and amount
of column spacefor eacharticle.They beginwith the issue of 4March 1843and
conrinue, with severalshort breaks,to the twentieth century.Approximately
7, percent of the articlesin any given issueare listed, but many of the smaller
onesare omitted.
'science
36. Paradis, and Satire',pp. r49-ro.
37. For Leigh, Smith, and Du Maurier seeDl/B. For Mayhew seePrice, History
of Punch,27. Although Atbert Smith Ieft Punch in fi$ he was responsiblefor
'The
one of its most famous portrayals of medical students, the r84r series
Physiology of the London Medical Student'.
38. George Somes Layard, A Great "Punc/t" Editor: Being the Life, Letters, and
Diaries {shnley Brooks(London: Sir IsaacPitman 8c Sons,r9o7),pp. izi, i39,
'The
49j, 516,5r8,j79. Brooks'spoem was publishedas Dodo Demolished',
P 66 (t8Z4 , 19.
39. Silver Diary. For analysisseeLeary,'ThbleTalk and Print Culture'.
40. Silver Diary, entries for r September1858(Stephenson),zi February r8i9
(phrenology), 3 May 1865(Fitzroy).
4r. Silver Diary, entry for 9 April fi62. The last sentenceis from [Henry Silver],
'Iron-CladJack.
A Sea-Song of the Future',P 4z (136z),146.For the interaction
'suggestors'
berween Punch artists and of illustrations seeJohn Bush Jones
and PriscillaShaw;Artists and "suggestors": The PunchCartoons1843-1848',
Victorian PeriodicakReuieutz (tgl8), z-14.
 I

z7q lVotes to pages n3-rr6

4;-. [John Leech],'The "British Tar" of the Future',P +t G86z),lt+Zl.

'The
4j.Cross, CommonWriter,p. roz. lMark Lemon?], Moral of Punch', P r
(r84r),r.
'Humour'
44. Stephen, , 1,zo.
'Faraday
4t. [Percival Leigh], A Philosopher Afloat', P t9 (r8l;) , z6; [John Leech],
GivingHisCardtoFatherThameS,,Pz9Q855),|'il
'The
46. [Anon.], LocomotiveTableCompan/', P 14 (rSll),2o9.
'How
47. [John Leech], to InsureAgainstRailwayAccidents',P z4 (t8;l), rzr.
48. See Silver Diary, entries for 8 and ry August 186o, z6 February,y March
1862,and 19March fi62 which revealPunch contributors' scepticismrowards
spirit-rapping.
49.For the symbiosisberweenPunch and other Victorian periodicalsseeAltick,
Punch, pp. 6Z-go.
'Gorilla' 'Monkeyana', 'Man
to. [Anon.], P 4o (186r), zo6; Thomas H. Huxley,
and Apes',AthenaeLtm,13April r86t, 498
'I.[ShirleyBrooks],.Punch,,E,,.,,ceofParliament,,Pl+(r818),z33-4Ql)
tz. [Anon.], A PhilosopherAfloat'.
'r3
'Will
[P.r.i.r"l Leigh], it \fash?', P ll (r8t7), fi3.
'Light
t4. [HoraceMayhew], and Hair', P +g (r86y), rr4.
tr. [Anon.], "'ScienceGossip"',P S+(1868) , zoz.
'The
56. [Percival Leigh], Irish Yahoos', P 4t (r86r), z4r.
57. Foster, Paddy and Mr. Punc/t, pp. r7r-94; Perry Curtis, Apes and Angels:
The lrishman in Victorian Caricature(Vashington and London: Smithsonian
Institution, znd edn, 1996).
18.[HenrySilver],.St.JanuariuSatitAgain,,P37('8lq),I49
'Representative
,9. [PercivalLeigh], Rascals',P 4t (t86r), ,j.
'Quite
6o. J[ohn] Lleech], a NovelV', P z7 Q8r4), 4o.
6t. lGilbert Abbott ) Beckett], A Railway M"p of England', P 9 ft8a), 6j
'The
62. [George] D["] M[aurier], Keeper Nightmare', P 6o (rSZr), l6-Zli ,
'The
C[harles]H. Bfennett], British Association, P 49 (r86y), rr3_r4
Q.R[ichard]D[o;'1e],.MannerSandCustomsofyeE,nglyshe(NewSeries)
No.ro:AScientificInstitution_DuringyeLectureofanEminent.Savan,,,P
'Faraday
19 (r85o),ry6; [Leech], .
64. J[ohn] L[eech], Animal Magnetism; Sir Rhubarb Pill Mesmerising the
'Lord
British Lion', P r (r84r), 16il; J[ohn] Leech, Brougham's Railway ,
(r8+l), 'Effect
Nightmare', P 8 Ito7l; Jlohn] L[eech], of the Submarine j
Telegraph;or, Peaceand Good-\7ill BetweenEngland and France', P 19 (r85o), ,
'The
fttZl; John Leech, Use of Adulteration',P z9 (t8l;),l+il; Uohn Leech], ,
'Father
Thames Introducing His Ofrspring to the Fair Ciry of Lond on', P 35 :
(l8l8),[l];J[ohn]T[ennie1],.AnotherEclipseforIndid,Pr(r858),[ror];Uohn
'The
Leech?], New RussellSix-Pounder',P $ (186o), [rzr]. [John Leech?],
'The 'The
Lion of the Season' , P 4o (136r), lzryh I John Leech?], Parliamen-
tary Python', P 4z Q86z),[81];T[enniel], 'The -;
Political Cow-Docrors', P to
"
(1866), 16gl.
'Another
65. T[enniel], Eclipse'.
 IYotes to pages u6-rzj 27,

'Eclipse
66. [To- Tayior], in India',P jt (r868), ro4-r.
'Fourth
67. llvlark Lemon], Meeting of the Brightish Association for the
Advancementof Everythins: SectionA - Mathematicaland Physical Science',
P ; (1843),67.
'Fourth
68. [Lemon], Meeting'. For Punc/t'stussleswith Bunn seeAltick, Punc/t,
pp. 698-707.
'PoliticaJ,Zoology:
69. [PercivalLeigh], The Red-Tapeworm', P z8 (r8ll),7r.
'English
70. For analysis of ScribleriansseeKoppel, Satire',pp.196-44.
'Buns', ( r 8 + i ) , 7 L .
7 r . [ A n o n . ] ,'Grand 4 P
[Anon.],
72. 'Simon Railwayfrom England to Chin&', P I G8+z),zo5.
'Fudge
7j. Hodgskins' [PercivalLeigh], for Farmers',P rr (r846), 4o Leigh's
italics.
'Punch's
74.See [ShirleyBrooks], Essenceof Parliament',P g (1866),zo8-9;
'Fresh
fPercivalLeigh], Air! Or, Victoria Park Preserved',P 5o (1366), zr4;
Clharles]H.B[ennett],'Punch on the People's Parks',P p (1866),rj8.
75. Audi Alteram Patrem' [PercivalLeigh], A Gas Plant at Victoria Park', P ,o
(r866), zt9.
76. Amy Cruse, The Victoriansand their Reading(Boston:Houghton Mifflin Co.,
r%), p.3g4.
'Du
77. Henry James, Maurier and London Sociery', CenturyMagazinez6 Q88),
49-6t (;t). Cited in Altick, Punch,p.o.
'Darwin
78. Browne, in Caricature'.SeealsoBert Hansen,America'sFirst Medical
Breakthrough:How PopularExcitementabout a FrenchRabiesCure in r88y
RaisedNew Expectationsfor Medical Progress',American Historical Reuieu
rc3 $998), lll-4r8. I owe this referenceto Jim Secord.
79. This is based on the principle that the actual number of readers of
a periodical is roughly five times the number of copies sold. Thus
copies of Punch in the r86os would have been read by approximately
-
5 x 6o,ooo 3oo,ooopeople.For this principleseeAltick, Punch,p. ]8.
'Effects
8o. [Henry Silver], of the RecentEclipSe',P n (186o),39.
8r. For sociologicalanalysisof scientists'jokes seeG. Nigel Gilbert and Michael
Mulkay, Opening Pand.ora's Box: A SociologicalAnalysisof Scientists'Discourse
(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversiryPress,rg8+),pp. r7z-87. For scienceand
rhetoric seeAlan G. Gross, TheRhetoricof Science (Cambridge,Mass.:Harvard
UniversiryPress,r99o).
'Presidential
82. Lord Rayleigh, Address', Proceedingsof the Societyfor Psychical
'V.ty
Research 3o (19r8-r9),27t-9o (tl6). Rayleighwa-sref.rrirrg to [A"o".],
Odd!', P z4 (r8ll) , rzo.