Now, although Bradbury and Evans had hesitated to become proprietors, they had had no objection to act as printers and publishers, and when the editors approached them they lent a ready ear. "It was Uncle Mark," said "Pater" Evans at the "Gentleman's Magazine" dinner in 1868, "who was the chief conspirator when they brought Punch to Whitefriars; it was his eloquence alone that induced us to buy Punch. Jerrold did not say much, but he supported his friend, you may be sure. They talked us over very easily." They bought the editors' share for £200, which they advanced on the security of the whole. Into the circumstances of the subsequent squabbles between Landells and the firm it is not needful to enter. He bitterly complained that he could obtain neither statements of accounts nor satisfactory arrangement, while the firm withheld their favourable consideration of the agreements his solicitors sent them to sign. The negotiations proceeded wearily from April, 1842, to December 24th, with rising wrath on the part of the good-hearted, impatient Northumbrian, who could neither understand nor brook the repeated delays, and fairly boiled over with indignation, suspicion, and wrath. In despair, so Landells recorded, that his lawyers could get no satisfaction, and yet "not willing to put the whole thing into Chancery," he blurted out that he should buy back Bradbury and Evans' share or they acquire his. As cool business men they promptly asked his price. He named £450, ultimately reducing it to £400, and further to £350, on the understanding, he says, that he should continue to act as engraver; and great were his anger and humiliation when he found after the second week of the new régime that the engraving was taken from him. But it is only fair to say that in his lawyer's instructions there is evidence that Bradbury and Evans persistently declined to give up their freedom in the matter of the engraving. The transfer then took place.[5] On December 23rd, 1842, the firm was already speaking with some authority; the voice was the voice of the printers, but the tone was the tone of proprietors. And that was the passing of Punch. Earlier in the year Landells had made an effort to save the paper by persuading those who worked for it to take shares. With a few he was successful; others were less speculative, so the writer was informed by the late H. G. Hine. "Landells," he said, "asked me to take a share in the paper, but, not being a business man, I declined. When the paper changed hands, Bradbury and Evans bought it for so small an increase on the actual losses and debts, that each man, when the profits were divided, received two-and-sixpence each." Not long after Landells ceased his connection with Punch, Douglas Jerrold met Vizetelly, and acquainted him with the turn of the tide. "Punch is getting on all right now," he said; and added, in his saturnine way, "It began to do so immediately we threw that engraving Jonah overboard!" Yet Jerrold was glad enough to take advantage of the engraving Jonah's influence the following year, when Landells, with Herbert Ingram, N. Cooke, T. Roberts, W. Little, and R. Palmer started the "Illuminated Magazine," and installed him as editor at a handsome salary.
The following page from Landells' rather rough-and-ready accounts will give some idea of how financial matters stood between the parties at the time of the transfer:—
| B. & E. Cash Recd. | B. & E. Cash Paid. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||
| Accts. | 1,278 | 6 | 9 | Cash paid to Artists, Editors, etc. | 507 | 4 | 0 |
| Editors, Artists, paid | 507 | 4 | 6 | B. & E. for printing | 605 | 10 | 6 |
| —— | —— | —— | |||||
| 771 | 2 | 3 | |||||
| B. & E. acct. | 605 | 10 | 6 | ||||
| —— | —— | —— | |||||
| Balance in hand | £165 | 11 | 9 | ||||
| E. Landells. | Lemon, Coyne, and Mayhew. | ||||||
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||
| To Engravings | 315 | 4 | 0 | To Editing | 400 | 0 | 0 |
| Cash | 25 | 0 | 0 | ½ debt | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| —— | —— | —— | |||||
| Paid contributions at £6. 0. 0 per week | 120 | 0 | 0 | ½ debt | 300 | 0 | 0 |
| Paid contributions at £6. 0. 0 per week | 120 | 0 | 0 | ½ debt | 300 | 0 | 0 |
| —— | —— | —— | 460 | 4 | 0 | ||
| 400 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| ½ debt | 100 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 0 | 0 | |
| —— | —— | —— | —— | —— | —— | ||
| 360 | 4 | 0 | 300 | 0 | 0 | ||
| —— | —— | —— | 120 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Cash received | 57 | 0 | 0 | —— | —— | —— | |
| £303 | 4 | 0 | 25 | 0 | 0 | ||
| —— | —— | —— | |||||
| £155 | 0 | 0 | |||||
[Note.—The schedule of documents and legal papers connected with the matters here dealt with, now in possession of Messrs. Bradbury, Agnew and Co., Ltd. (which confirm the particulars derived from Landells' papers) are:—
1. The original Agreement between the original founders of Punch already enumerated. This is dated July 14th, 1841—only three days before the appearance of the paper. It is printed at length as Appendix 1 to this volume.
2. Agreement between Bradbury and Evans and "Punchites," whereby in consideration of a loan of £150 the printing of the paper is assured to the firm. This is dated Oct., 1841, the signatories being E. Landells, Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, and Stirling Coyne, with W. H. Wills and G. Windsor as witnesses.
3. The assignment to Landells of Punch and the stock-in-trade by Lemon, Mayhew, and Stirling Coyne. Dated December 6th, 1841.
4. Assignment to Bradbury and Evans by Landells of his two-thirds share of Punch. Dated, July 25th, 1842.
5. Assignment of his remaining one-third to Bradbury and Evans by Landells, in consideration of £100 cash and their acceptance for £250 due Jan. 31st, 1843, their mortgage on this share to be cancelled. This deed is dated Dec. 29th, 1842, and is in the terms of Landells' letter of agreement of the previous 24th.]
The new proprietors, when they acquired their interest in Punch, were not then distinguished publishers such as they soon became; they were essentially printers, and had few connections to assist them in making it into a paying property. They had, however, W. S. Orr & Co. (the London agents of Chambers, of Edinburgh), who had fallen into financial difficulties, and looked to Bradbury and Evans to help them out; and through their organisation Punch was taken up by the trade "on sale or return." To work up the sale of a threepenny publication was at that time a formidable task; but Orr certainly accomplished it, and for a time Punch undoubtedly owed more to his efforts than to Jerrold's pen or Leech's pencil. The head of the firm, in both senses, was William Bradbury, the keenest man of business that ever trod the flags of Fleet Street, and the founder of a dynastic line nearly as long and eminent as that of John Murray himself. His portrait may be seen in Punch more than once—for example, in Tenniel's drawing of the Staff at play at the beginning of Vol. XXVII, 1854, where his tall, imposing figure contrasts with that of his partner, Frederick Mullett ("Pater") Evans, who appears with shining spectacles, beaming countenance, and convex waistcoat. Jolly old "Pater," who died in 1870, was the model of Leech's pater-familias; and it is remembered to his credit that he never resented the liberty taken with him by Thackeray in "The Kickleburys on the Rhine." It has always been the graceful and feeling practice of Punch, ever since the death of Dr. Maginn, to whom a kindly obituary was devoted in 1842, to do honour in his pages to each of his lieutenants as they drop out of the ranks, recognising misfortune and death—both "devil's inventions," as Ruskin calls them—as toll-gates on the path of life, with sorrow as the tax; so that these more solemn articles and mortuary elegies seem to mark the way, like milestones set by loving hands. To Evans one of these was raised, and we read in it that "they who inscribe these lines to his memory will never lament a more kind, more genial, or more loyal friend."