who swallow pun
Unmurm'ring, now and then declare,
Henceforward they must seek their fun
Elsewhere.

It is when you have multiplied
Your misconceptions, Mrs. Ram.,
That patience, sorely thus o'er-tried,
Says "----."

My task is therefore plain: to hint
That you, true woman to the core,
Are, when you interfere with print,
A bore.

I would not venture to suggest
The line of conduct to pursue;
I state a fact ... and leave the rest
To you.

But, in spite of this bitter cry, the next week's number of _Punch_
contained a quarter of a page of the lady's reminiscences and three
misapprehensions. "O," exclaimed the tormented Poet, "that some Abraham
would arise to do sacrifice!" Later on Mr. Furniss arose to the call, as
the murderous Barons responded to Henry's ejaculation. In "Lika Joko"
(November 3, 1894) there was printed an obituary notice of Mrs.
Ramsbotham (as nothing in her name had appeared in the previous week's
_Punch_), and a very comic death-bed scene was presented--reminding one
of a similar incident in "Joe Miller the Younger," when that paper,
like many of the public, grew tired of Mrs. Caudle, and, reporting her
"sudden death," published an engraving by Hine, wherein _Punch_ in
weepers is seen laying a wreath upon her monument, while Toby and his
baton are both decorated with crape. In "Lika Joko's" presentation of
her "_momentum mori_," she babbles of things in general; she is nervous
as to the physic handed to her, and remarks that these medicine bottles
are as like to one another as the two Dominoes in the "Comedy of
Horrors;" she declares, as her mind wanders to the Chino-Japanese war,
that "the best remedy for political disorders is antimony, but things
may be different in horizontal nations;" and, finally, as she sinks
back in death, she fancies she sees a hand a'Becketting to her.
But _Punch_ ignored the attack; and the report of the death of his
lady-correspondent was duly recognised as a canard.

But "Lika Joko" is by no means the only comic paper that has attacked
_Punch_, smiting him hip and thigh. The violent charges of plagiarism
which for many years it was the fashion to bring against him have
already been referred to. From the beginning the principal--as it is the
easiest--charge that has been made is the alleged heaviness of _Punch's_
fun or his deficiency of wit; less often, it has been a legitimate
complaint of blunder or of jou