"Speaking of Punch, you are, I presume, aware that although the idea of 'Punch' was taken from my 'Omnibus,' that I never had anything to do with that work of 'Punch,' and also that for many years (20!!!) I have not taken anything in the way of Punch.
"However, I will say no more about Punch at present, as I fear you will feel as if you could 'punch' the head of
"Yours truly.
"George Cruikshank."
His grievance was that Punch's figure was stolen from his book (to which Payne Collier had written the text), and that the paper itself was but an imitation of his own short-lived monthly magazine. With greater reason could he complain that the Punch Pocket-books were copied from his "Comic Annuals," as they were, and that the imitations killed the originals after a contest of a dozen years; but the idea of Punch being copied from the "Omnibus," with which it had hardly a single point in common, save humour and illustration, has probably about as much foundation as Cruikshank's claim against Dickens and "Oliver Twist," or against Harrison Ainsworth and "The Miser's Daughter" and "The Tower of London." Yet Punch rendered ample tribute to his genius, not so much in the adaptation of many of his best-known drawings to cartoons, including "Jack Sheppard" (1841), "Oliver asking for More" (1844), "The Fix" [Points of Humour] (1844), "The Juggernaut" (1845), "Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger" (1846), "The Deaf Postilion" (1846), and "Fagin in the Cell" (1848), "The Election" [Sketches by Boz] down to "Harcourt the Headsman" (June 8th, 1895); but also by deliberate statement and amiability prepense. That, however, did not prevent Punch from chaffing "the Great George" upon occasion, as when he was preparing his "Life of Falstaff" the journal gravely assumed that he would reform that incorrigible tippler into a "teetotal Falstaff," and protested against the enthusiast mixing water so copiously with the milk of his human kindness. So Cruikshank set off in great wrath towards Fleet Street to seek out the scoffer, and, meeting Blanchard Jerrold, sputtered out his purpose and declared that he was on the trail of that scoundrel Punch to "knock his old wooden head about." When he died, Punch announced that "England is the poorer by what she can ill spare—a man of genius. Good, kind, genial, honest, and enthusiastic George Cruikshank ... has passed away."
T. HARRINGTON WILSON
(Drawn by T. W. Wilson, R.I.)
Mr. T. Harrington Wilson, the well-known special correspondent of the "Illustrated London News," at that time a specialist in theatrical portraiture, joined the paper as an occasional contributor in 1853, and over various monograms sent in a dozen clever, but hardly striking, drawings. These were "socials" dealing with society or fashion, stage situations from behind the scenes, and grotesque ideas, such as the "effect of wearing respirators on burglars" (October, 1853). Mr. Wilson—who, by the way, had studied at the National Gallery side by side with Sir John Tenniel and Charles Martin—contributed to the Pocket-books from 1854 to 1857, and ceased his connection when he was ordered abroad.
All the outside artistic help received by Punch in 1854 came from five occasional correspondents: from "F. M.," an amateur, in February; from Mr. Swain the engraver (who fitfully contributed unimportant sketches at times of sudden need), in the same month; from J. Bennett; from Chambers (a half-a-dozen initials extending over that and the following year, and reappearing in 1864;) and from Mr. Harrison Weir. The contribution of the latter occurred during Leech's indisposition, when Mr. Weir was invited by Mark Lemon to make a few drawings to fill the place which would be so sadly missed. So the artist—who was working under Lemon on the "Field"—produced a half-page drawing illustrative of the tribulation of young lady who was obliged to leave half her luggage behind by reason of the cab-strike; and it was printed on p. 163 of Vol. XXVII. Then Leech recovered, and Mr. Weir's services were dispensed with.