The Heritage of Dress: Being Notes on the History and Evolution of Clothes

by Wilfred Mark Webb

Fig. 156.—The Doctor, from the Punch and Judy Show, with wig and white tie.

With regard to the changes in Punch’s behaviour we have a word to say. Originally he was somewhat of a composite character, the constituent elements being derived from several of the personages of the larger theatre. At first, to the amorous and intriguing ways of Pulicinella there was added the roguery of Scaramouch, as well as the dash and braggadocio of the Spanish captain who was a member of the comedy company, akin to the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus and the Bobadil of Ben Jonson.

As time went on there was less love-making and trickery and more knocking about, but Mr. Heppel will not allow that the French writers are right in ascribing the whole of this to English influence. For the fact that the puppets are not alive gives an opportunity for dealing blows with a reality that could not be tolerated if the actors were living, and when we remember the way in which dog Toby seizes Punch by the nose, we cannot help feeling that the effect could hardly be so realistically produced on the actual stage.

In France, Punch is a bachelor, or if he is married he is not very much married, while in England Punch always runs in double harness. Another alteration has taken place. Polly, who was one of the characters that have disappeared, has departed for the reasons put into the showman’s mouth by Mr. Henry Mayhew in 1861. “Miss Polly was left out, because it wasn’t exactly moral. Opinions has changed. We ain’t better, I fancy. Such things goes on, but people don’t like to let it be seen now; that’s the difference. Judy’s dress, you see, is far different, bless you, than Miss Polly’s. Judy’s, you see, is bed-furniture stuff, and Polly’s is all silk and satin. Yes, that’s the way of the world; the wife comes off second best.”

As in old times, there was much buffoonery introduced even into religious plays, and the characters which have been separated from the other performers to take part in the special harlequinade of the modern pantomime used, together with Punch, to appear side by side with those who took the part of religious personages. To uneducated people there seemed nothing profane about this; but as time went on men and women came to look at matters in a different light. For reasons somewhat similar, the devil and the ghost are now left out, and in the performances that are given in drawing-rooms even the coffin, in some cases.

The connection, however, of Punch with religious plays probably accounts for the name by which his wife now goes. Those who mistakenly supposed that the word Punch was derived from Pontius Pilate looked upon Judy as representing Judas Iscariot. We have already pointed out the origin of the former appellation, which ante-dates the Christian era, while a difficulty is met with in the fact that the wife of Punch for many years was known as Joan. Mr. Heppel says that of the miracle plays some of the most popular were taken from the Apocrypha, and a very favourite subject was the tale of Judith and Holofernes. If we cannot find an instance recorded of Punch furnishing the amusement in this story, we can, at any rate, find an advertisement of a play in which Harlequin and Judith were together, and the comic business was sometimes entrusted to Punch and sometimes to Harlequin. Hence Punch and Judy may not improbably have come from Punch and Judith, while Toby naturally suggests the dog in the book of Tobit.

With regard to Toby, it may be said that he is represented in France by a cat, and that until the nineteenth century he was only a stuffed figure. In China, where Punch beats his wife to the music of the clarionette instead of Pandæan pipes held in a muffler, Toby is replaced by a wooden dragon with jaws that snap, and this figure is also now introduced in England. Hector the horse has quite disappeared. We might mention here that in the English version a clown is brought in with very considerable effect.

There is another connection of dolls with costume rather than of costume with dolls which we may mention at this point. In the fourteenth century, when there were no fashion plates, and written descriptions would hardly do their duty effectively, model costumes were put upon dolls and sent from country to country. It is, moreover, a curious and interesting fact that it was principally from Paris that these fashions were sent out.

Examples of national costumes sometimes survive on the bodies of dolls. The figure of St. Nicholas, in Belgium, shows an old dress, and the costume dolls of Holland, France, and Switzerland are excellent records of native dress now seldom seen in everyday life. Mr. Edward Lovett bought a little doll in Lucerne which is in a cradle, and shows excellently well the swaddling clothes that were formerly in use. Ancient Greek and Roman dolls, taken from children’s graves, were similarly dressed, and a modern Russian doll, which is also in possession of Mr. Lovett, is shown with the swathing band in situ. The only dolls that are to be found in Malta represent ancient saints, and it is said that they are dressed as such.