Anglo‐American
 relations must grow cozier from Mr. Cole's shrewd demonstration that 
Punch is funny for Americans. Of course, exception should be taken to a 
few attempts to be funny about us.Putting
 those gaffes aside, there is delightful fooling from the first cartoon 
onward. That one, by Gerald Scarfe, reveals that when Napoleon began the
 freezing march back from burning Moscow a soldier trotted out of line 
to build a cheerfully abominable snowman. The first story, by Patrick 
Ryan, illustrates why it is a mistake to give coffee to a somnolent 
drunk, the author being stretched on a pub floor by a right bolo to the 
chin as he considers the point.Scarfe and Ryan set the pace for Punch artists, story‐tellers and poets—all of them with a fast foot but under wraps.However,
 the enigmas of their English still appear. Ryan has an old prize 
fighter say of his career: “I fecht ’em all.” No one but a native of the
 British Isles could even hear an Englishman say such a word, and only a
 British journal would print it. Is this the language we have jointly 
fecht to preserve?

A Big Bowl Of Punch : A Heady Potpourri Of Cartoons, Prose And Verse From England's Famous Humorous Weekly PDF

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