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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
originalities mare to myself in future , or only to bd given Oitt before a sufficient number of respectable witnesses . To the proposition that Punch is a being- wondrously tteftdifcttt in reason , it will not be difficult to give sufficient illustration . He roundly asserts the most manifest falsehood
Or absurdity to be a literal fact , and attempts to prove it dpon kid astonished auditor by a , terrible blow on the back of th * head ' from his embraced quarter staff . For instance , what ft . 'terrific combat' ertsutes , —as the managers of the great National Theatres express it , —in consequence of Punch alarming the neighbourhood by nieans of a tin box with a atone in it , whietl he ludicrously calls an " organ > " not played upon by fc ^ yd or hf
Winding , but by his bashing it against the Doric columns at the side of the stage , and upon the proscenium . Still , the fight takes plac 6 , not so much on account Of the disturbance Punch creates , as from his perversity when a respectable housekeeper ( Who rather oddly designates it a bell , ) remonstrates with faiii as to "that nasty bell . " To this Punch replies , patting Mift
in a most provokingly soothing manner— " My fneM- ^ tt it a , very find organ !"— " An organ ! " ejaculates the respectable housekeeper— "ha ! ha ! ha ! " But Punch pgrsisti- ^ hi | h words ensue—assertion meets assertion- * - " I say 'tis an orgattr ' - ^' I say His a bell !"~ " 1 say you ' rfe a liar ! "—and forthwith , ia order to prove it , Punch dashes the tin box against his head , and down gods the respectable housekeeper !
I must here observe , though the fact is too evident to raider it very necessary , that Mr Punch is a mere physical humourist * albeit of a supreme degree . His fun is entirely supported by thfc phrenological development at the back of his head , or rather behind the ears . His blows are almost always directed at this quarter . He seldom strikes an individual on the for ** head . Others strike him also at the back of the head ^ or eftfil , biittg instinctively conscious that he has no mind , and cfttt © nlv understand a blow on his best development .
But his deficiency of reason ( as of natural fading * *« l « t affections ) is curiously characterised by a ludicrous assumption of the reasonable in hia manner . Thus , after insisting upon nursing his child , he towzles it like a brute , and then throws it out of the window , When Judy finds what he has done , she Weeps " wub ! wub ! " very bitterly , and then suddenly asks him
Why he did so?— " What for ? " Whereunto , —patting her shoulder in his impudent , aggravating , pacificatory way , a » though he Was the rtiost reasonable man in the world , recommending ; others to be equally so—he answers , " It was a cross child ,- ^ ttoMfbfe " - " -kn& he ducks his pointed cap > and striken hit hind upon the phtecenium , as he briskly adds , — 1 ehttek'd it out btafcWifttow ! ' ' Pufaih id tti&ctly in the moml position of many a hero of a
Untitled Article
AnnfyHmi mfttetton * n Pvnvh md Jt ^ . US
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 1, 1837, page 115, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1828/page/68/
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