The Proprietor: "I'll tell you what it is, Shardson, I'm getting sick of the 'ole bloomin' Show! The Knacker ain't selling a Scrap—no notice took of us anywhere—not a bloomin' Advertisement! And yet there ain't 'ardly a livin' Englishman of mark, from Tennyson downwards, as we 'aven't shown up and pitched into, and dragged 'is Name in the Mud!"
The Editor: "Don't let's throw up the Sponge yet, Old Man! Let's give the dead 'uns a turn—let's have a shy at Thackeray, Browning, George Eliot, or, better still, let's bespatter General Gordon and Cardinal Newman a bit—that ought to fetch 'em a few, and bring us into Notice!"
Russel and Delane
Turning for the moment from gay to grave, we may note that Punch bestowed his benediction on the Dictionary of National Biography, when the first instalment of what was the greatest act of true sportsmanship in the publishing world of our times appeared in January, 1885. Per contra, the proposal for a British Academy in 1890 only met with irreverent suggestions from Punch for the constitution of the Elective Body.
Punch kept a watchful eye on the developments of journalism and periodical literature. He notes in 1876 the impending appearance of Truth, but his opinion of Society journals, discussed elsewhere, was not flattering. When Alexander Russel, the great editor of the Scotsman, died in July, 1876, Punch did not fail to recognize the conspicuous services of that fearless, honest and trenchant publicist and malleus stultorum:—
The shadows that make up our night,
Were growing thin for him to fight,
But still he fights, we think with pride,
Our battle from the other side!