Punch in the drawing-room (1871)
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This piece from The Graphic describes the popularity of Punch at private parties during the 1870s.
"...Not that Punch is solely to be found in the streets, to be gazed at only out of windows or from the extreme edge of the pavement. He is also in great request at children's parties - fashionable parties too - sometimes Royal parties, for we most of us have seen about London the Punch, which "played before Her Majesty" and the Royal Children at Windsor Castle." He is as much at home in the drawing-room as in the street, and in the long evenings of the Christmas Holidays, that merry season of children's parties, he is a constant guest. A welcome one, too, as the happy little faces in our illustration plainly show.
Why children should be fond of such an un-domestic drama as portrayed in the representation of Mr. Punch's adventures, can only be accounted for by that love of the horrible so innate even in infantile human nature. The incidents in the drama are certainly startling. Those of a transpontine tragedy are nothing to the terrible to the terrible catastrophes which here crowd thick upon each other. Where, also, can you find such a bold devil-may-care daring villain as here? One that not only murders his child, wife, and sundry interfering neighbours with as little compunction as a certain Roman Emperor is said to have killed flies, but actually hurls thunderbolts at great Jove himself, by hanging Jack Ketch. The boldest of highwaymen never achieved such a feat as this, and well may the little folk stare with wonder and awe at such a hero. Toby also is another "great attraction" as is regarded by the audience much as the introduction of a "wild" horse or a "real" locomotive at Astley's or the "Vic". But even "Punch" has a moral, for is he not pursued by his victim's ghost, and is he not finally carried off to regions unknown, by that terrible bugbear of childhood - Bogey?
Even the "old folk" in our party seem to enjoy the fun, and as for the younger ones, their interest is intense. Doubtlessly some of them have furtively watched the preparations, have seen with great anxiety the mysterious frame brought upstairs, and assured themselves that it is a real tangible Punch out of the streets, and not a make-up. Stay, there is one thing different - the drum, which has been exchanged for a smaller instrument, as less likely to deafen the audience in such a confined space. The overture is over, and Mr. Punch is just administering a little "wholesome correction to his better half." Alas! the spectators show no sympathy to the injured innocence. On the contrary, they laugh the louder as our hero's inhumanity waxes greater and greater with his career; the hangman episode is keenly relished, for they have no respect for the law and its myrmidons, the little vagabonds; and only the very tiny ones show any symptom of awe at the appearance of the late Mrs. Judy in a white dressing gown, or even of the dread Bogey himself."
Location: The Graphic (1871) Christmas Number, (December 25). Taken from The Graphic Vol. 4 July to December 1871. Archives and Heritage BF052
