that the Press of the world welcomed the fiftieth
anniversary of his birth, and that with a cordiality and unanimity never
before accorded to any paper. Hardly a journal in the English-speaking
world but commented on the event with kindly sympathy; hardly one that
marred the celebration with an ill-humoured reflection. Pencil as well
as pen was put to it to do honour to the greatest comic paper in the
world, and demonstrate in touching friendliness the confraternity of the
Press.

For the public, _Punch_ issued his "Jubilee number" and, in accordance
with the promise given in the first volume fifty years before, he
produced in his hundredth a brief history of his career and the names of
the men who made it, modestly advising his readers to secure a set of
his back volumes as the real "Hundred Best Books." For himself, he dined
with the Staff at the "Ship Hotel" at Greenwich, when the Editor, who
occupied the chair, was feted by the proprietors of the paper and
received a suitable memento of the glorious event.

[Illustration: MR. PUNCH PORTRAYED BY DIFFERENT HANDS.

_See p. 9._]

And what may appear to some as the most curious celebration of all was a
solemn religious celebration--nothing less than a _Te Deum_--in honour
of the occasion. It sounds at first, perhaps, a little like a
joke--though not in good enough taste to be one of Mr. Punch's own; but
the service was held; and when regarded in the light shed upon it by the
Rev. J. de Kewer Williams, the incongruity of it almost disappears. "I
led my people yesterday," he wrote, "in giving thanks on the occasion
of your Jubilee, praying that you might ever be as discreet and as
kindly as you have always been." The prayer spoken in the pulpit
appropriately ended as follows: "For it is so easy to be witty and
wicked, and so hard to be witty and wise. May its satire ever be as good
and genial, and the other papers follow its excellent example!"

The public tribute was not less cordial and sincere, and poetic
effusions flowed in a gushing stream. But none of these verses, doggerel
and otherwise, expressed more felicitously the general feeling than
those which had been written some years before by Henry J. Byron--(who
had himself attempted to establish a rival to _Punch_, but had been
crushed by the greater weight)--one of his verses running:--

"From 'Forty-one to present times
How much these pages speak,
And _Punch_ still bids us look into
The middle of