rs no longer, he broke out, as recounted, in
the summer of 1844, again in the following year, and once more in 1847,
into a practical prosecution. Douglas Jerrold's caustic pen had full
play in his all-round denunciation of the pilferers, and in _Punch's_
name he let fly at big game. "First and foremost," he declared, "the
great juggler of Printing-House Square walks in like a sheriff and takes
our comic effects;" and Newman's pencil added point to the
comprehensiveness of the assault. Of numerous frauds, too, _Punch_ had
to complain. "_Punch's_ Almanacs" of a vile and indecent sort, with
which he had nothing in the world to do, had been issued to his
detriment, and several papers were produced in close imitation of his
own; but it was the circumstance of his stolen jokes that wounded him
most of all, and caused him to lay his baton about him with lusty
vigour. The incriminated journals, thoroughly in their element, retorted
with well-feigned indignation. Prominent among them "Joe Miller the
Younger" had professed for him at first a particular friendship which,
when contemptuously rejected, turned, like the love of a woman scorned,
to hate. It might have been retorted that _Punch_, in the words of his
prospectus, had frankly owned that he would give "asylum for
superannuated Joe Millers," and even that Mr. Birket Foster had been
actually employed in 1842 in "adapting" and anglicising Gavarni's
drawings for _Punch's_ pages. Instead, "Joe Miller" defended the size of
his page, which was, he said, like _Punch's_ own, copied from the
"Athenaeum," and protested against any attempt at monopoly, pointing out
that the sub-title "Charivari" was itself a plagiarism. If anyone, he
went on, could prove that he bought a _Punch_ in mistake for a "Joe
Miller," he would willingly pay L5 for each copy so sold, in order "to
compensate the _Punch_ purchaser for his disappointment."

From this moment until his death he never left _Punch_ alone, and
constantly pointed out many of his delinquencies, plagiarisms apparently
so gross and frequent that it can hardly be doubted that some intrigue
was afoot. For example, on August 2nd, 1845, there appeared in both
papers a cartoon almost identical, with the attitudes reversed, entitled
"The Political Pas de Quatre"--after the existing ballet at Her
Majesty's Theatre, danced by Grisi, Taglioni, Grahn, and
Cerito--representing four ballet-skirted _danseuses_ in a grotesque pose
or tableau. Those in