"A new Entertainment, called a
NIGHT
with
PUNCH!
Founded on the Series of Celebrated Papers of that highly humorous Periodical, from the pens of the acknowledged best Comic Writers of the day. Adapted and Arranged by R. B. Peake, Esq. As performed by Mr. W. J. Hammond Forty-two successive nights at the New Strand Theatre.... After which, a Monopolylogue entitled the
LAST MAN;
or,
PUNCH OUT OF TOWN"
—with five characters, all performed by Hammond, the whole reaching its climax when Punch, in propria persona, appeared and sang an "Epilogue Song."
But it was Mrs. Caudle, of course, that offered a bait too tempting to be resisted. There was Mrs. Keeley's authorised "Mrs. Caudle" in town; but simultaneously Mrs. Caudles cropped up in every town in the country. One of these was enacted by Mr. Warren, and his playbill of the Theatre Royal, Gravesend, dated August 7th, 1845, is before me as I write. "The Real Mrs. Caudle," he asserts, "having received an enthusiastic welcome from a Gravesend audience, and being pronounced far superior to any of the counterfeit Representatives, will have the honour of repeating her Curtain Lecture this and to-morrow evenings." "Mrs. Caudle at Gravesend" was, in fact, a "Comic Sketch" by C. Z. Barnett; and the programme decorated with a common engraving in impudent imitation of Leech's immortal cut, contained all the dramatis personæ of Jerrold's little domestic drama, including "Mrs. Caudle (the Original from Punch's Papers), Mr. Warren."