em, necessarily carry
conviction. For such services, and for their ready and sympathetic
acquiescence in the requests I have made for permission to quote text or
reproduce engraving, my hearty thanks to Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and Co.
are due. To them and to all my numerous correspondents I here repeat the
assurance of gratitude for their courtesy which I have privately
expressed before.

I have reproduced no more pictures from _Punch_ than were rendered
necessary by the topics under discussion. I would rather send the
reader, for _Punch's_ pictures, to the ever-fresh pages of _Punch_
itself. Nor, I may add, did I seek information and assistance from its
Proprietors until this book was well advanced, preferring to make
independent research and to test statements on my own account.

My primary inducement to the writing of this book has been the interest
surrounding _Punch_, the study of which has not begotten in me the
hero-worship that can see no fault. How far I have succeeded, it rests
with the readers of this volume to decide.

_September, 1895._
M. H. SPIELMANN.

[Illustration: AN INTRODUCTION.

(_From the First Sketch by Charles H. Bennett._)]

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY. 1

CHAPTER I.

_PUNCH'S_ BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.

The Mystery of His Birth--Previous Unsuccessful Attempts at
Solution--Proposal for a "London Charivari"--Ebenezer Landells and
His Notion--Joseph Last Consults with Henry Mayhew--Whose
Imagination is Fired--Staff Formed--Prospectus--_Punch_ is Born and
Christened--The First Number 10

CHAPTER II.

_PUNCH'S_ EARLY PROGRESS AND VICISSITUDES.

Reception of _Punch_--Early Struggles--Financial Help Invoked--The
First Almanac--Its Enormous Success--Transfer of _Punch_ to
Bradbury and Evans--Terms of Settlement--The New Firm--_Punch's_
Special Efforts--Succession of Covers--"Valentines," "Holidays,"
"Records of the Great Exhibition," and "At the Paris
Exhibition" 29

CHAPTER III.

THE _PUNCH_ DINNER AND THE _PUNCH_ CLUB.

Origin and Antiquity of the Meal--Place of Celebration--The
"Crown"--In Bouverie Street and Elsewhere--The Dining-Hall--The
Table--