ginal size of page 5-1/4 x 3-3/4 inches._)]

At the head of this announcement there was a woodcut of Lord Morpeth,
Lord Melbourne (Prime Minister), and Lord John Russell, who were then in
office, but were popularly, and correctly, supposed to be in imminent
danger of defeat. The price originally proposed was twopence--the usual
price of similar papers of the day--but it was altered to "the
irresistibly comic charge of threepence!!" and the title was being
given as "The Fun----," when the writer stopped short and erased it. It
is generally believed that the intention was to call the paper "The
Funny Dog--with Comic Tales," as appears in the final line of the
prospectus; a title, moreover, that was employed in 1857 for a book in
which more than one _Punch_ man co-operated. A reduced copy of the now
rare leaflet as it was printed and circulated by tens of thousands is
given on the previous page. "Vates," it should be explained, was the
_nom de plume_ of the notorious sporting tipster then attached to
"Bell's Life in London."

As to the origin of _Punch's_ name, there are as many versions as of the
origin of _Punch_ itself. Hodder declares that it was Mayhew's sudden
inspiration. Last asserted that when "somebody" at the "Edinburgh
Castle" meeting spoke of the paper, like a good mixture of punch, being
nothing without Lemon, Mayhew caught at the idea and cried, "A capital
idea! We'll call it _Punch_!" Jovial Hal Baylis it was, says another,
who, when refreshment time came round (it was always coming round with
him), gave the hint so readily taken. Mrs. Brezzi, wife of the sculptor,
lays the scene of the first meeting in the "Wrekin Tavern," Broad
Street, Longacre, and writes that the founders were only prevented from
calling the paper "Cupid," with Lord Brougham in that character on the
title-page [presumably a mistake for Lord Palmerston, who subsequently
was so shown in _Punch_ by Brine, picking his teeth with his arrow] by
the sight from Joseph Allen's window of a Punch and Judy show in the
north-eastern corner of Trafalgar Square. Mrs. Bacon, Mark Lemon's
niece, informs me that she distinctly remembers being seated among the
gentlemen who met at his rooms in Newcastle Street, and hearing Henry
Mayhew suddenly exclaim, "Let the name be 'Punch'!"--a fact engraven on
her memory through her childish passion for the reprobate old puppet.
Mr. E. Stirling Coyne claims that it was his father who suggested the
title at the memo