Mr. Punch at the Seaside   By: Various

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PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

Edited by J. A. HAMMERTON

Designed to provide in a series of volumes, each complete in itself, the cream of national humour, contributed by the masters of comic draughtsmanship and the leading wits of the age to "Punch", from its beginning in 1841 to the present day.

[Illustration: "BY THE SILVER SEA"

This is not Jones's dog.]

MR. PUNCH AT THE SEASIDE

AS PICTURED BY

CHARLES KEENE, JOHN LEECH, GEORGE DU MAURIER, PHIL MAY, L. RAVEN HILL, J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE, GORDON BROWNE, E. T. REED, AND OTHERS....

WITH 200 ILLUSTRATIONS

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PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE PROPRIETORS OF "PUNCH"

THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD.

THE PUNCH LIBRARY OF HUMOUR

Twenty five volumes, crown 8vo. 192 pages fully illustrated

LIFE IN LONDON

COUNTRY LIFE

IN THE HIGHLANDS

SCOTTISH HUMOUR

IRISH HUMOUR

COCKNEY HUMOUR

IN SOCIETY

AFTER DINNER STORIES

IN BOHEMIA

AT THE PLAY

MR. PUNCH AT HOME

ON THE CONTINONG

RAILWAY BOOK

AT THE SEASIDE

MR. PUNCH AFLOAT

IN THE HUNTING FIELD

MR. PUNCH ON TOUR

WITH ROD AND GUN

MR. PUNCH AWHEEL

BOOK OF SPORTS

GOLF STORIES

IN WIG AND GOWN

ON THE WARPATH

BOOK OF LOVE

WITH THE CHILDREN

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EDITOR'S NOTE

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One of the leading characteristics of the nineteenth century was the tremendous change effected in the social life of Great Britain by the development of cheap railway travel. The annual holiday at the seaside speedily became as inevitable a part of the year's progress as the milkman's morning call is of the day's routine. What at first had been a rare and memorable event in a life time developed into a habit, to which, with our British love for conventions, all of us conform.

Whether or not our French critics are justified in saying that we Britishers take our pleasures sadly, these pages from the seaside chronicles of Mr. Punch will bear witness, and while at times they may seem to support the case of our critics, at others the evidence is eloquent against them. This at least is certain, that whatever the temperament of the British as displayed during the holiday season at our popular resorts, the point of view of our national jester, Mr. Punch, is unfailingly humorous, and such sadness as some of our countrymen may bring to their pleasures is but food for the mirth of merry Mr. Punch, who, we are persuaded, stands for the sum total of John Bull's good humour in his outlook on the life of his countrymen.

As the real abstract and brief chronicler of our time, Mr. Punch has mirrored in little the social history of the last sixty five years, and apart from the genuine entertainment which this book presents, it is scarcely less instructive as a pictorial history of British manners during this period. One may here follow in the vivid sketches of the master draughtsmen of the age the ceaseless and bewildering changes of fashion the passing of the crinoline, the coming and going of the bustle, the chignon, and similar vanities, and the evolution of the present day styles of dress both of men and women.

It is also curious to notice how little seaside customs, amusements, troubles and delights, have varied in the last half century. Landladies are at the end what they were at the beginning; the same old type of bathing machine is still in use; our forefathers and their womenfolk in the days when Mr. Punch was young behaved themselves by "the silver sea" just as their children's children do to day. Nothing has changed, except that the most select of seaside places is no longer so select as it was in the pre railway days, and that the wealthier classes, preferring the attractions of Continental resorts, are less in evidence at our own watering places.