Glancing at Nos. 2 and 3—Leech's sketch in No. 3 is, by the way, a truthfully graphic reminder to the writer of the first time he [unexpecting] heard and saw a strong Cornish cock-pheasant get up close at his feet—we come to No. 4, which represents the British Lion (as taxpayer) looking askance at the Prince of Wales, aged nine, on whose behalf application had just been made for the purchase of Marlborough House as a residence for the Prince. The portly man in the picture on the wall is a former Prince of Wales, the Regent who became George IV. in 1820, and who is here seen walking by the Pavilion at Brighton, built in 1784-87 as a residence for this Prince of Wales.
3.—BY LEECH. 1850.
No. 5 is very funny, and it is one of the many Punch jokes which are periodically served up afresh in other periodicals. I have read this joke somewhere quite lately, although it came out in Punch nearly fifty years ago.
On this score, does anyone know if the following is a Punch joke? It was lately told to me as a new joke, but I was afraid to send it to Mr. Punch:—
Two London street-Arabs. One is eating an apple, the other gazes enviously, and says, "Gi'e us a bite, Bill." "Sha'n't," says the apple-eater. "Gi'e us the core, then," entreats the non-apple-eater. "There ain't goin' to be no core!" stolidly replies the other, out of his stolidly munching jaws.
4.—THE PRINCE OF WALES AT AGE NINE. BY LEECH, 1850.
The very clever drawing No. 6 is by Richard Doyle; it was published in 1850, and at the close of that year Doyle left Punch owing to Punch's vigorous attack on "Popery"—the Popery scare got hold of the public mind in 1849, and for some while Punch published scathing cartoons against Roman Catholicism. Doyle being of that faith resigned his position and a good income through purely conscientious motives. Although Doyle left in 1850 his work was seen in Punch as lately as 1864, for when he resigned some of his work was then unpublished. This funny illustration of "A meeting to discuss the principles of Protection and Free Trade" was an outcome of the intensely bitter feeling between the partisans of both sides which marked the carrying-on by Lord John Russell of the system established by Sir Robert Peel in 1846 for throwing open our market-doors to free trade with foreign nations.
