Weather-Cock
THE function of Punch for most of 115 years has been to mirror accurately, then to mould subtly, and finally to create entirely certain middle-class attitudes towards (a) the working classes, (b) foreigners, (c) the middle classes. The mistake made by foreigners, Americans and English non-U-speakers is to expect to find it a comic publication; it is instead a remarkable barometer of current middle-class belief on all subjects from atomic energy to zebra crossings. Its growth is carefully revealed in A Century of Punch, edited by R. E. Wil- liams (Heinemann, 30s.), which offers what he calls 'the 1,000 best humorous drawings,' rang- ing over more than a century and under twenty-one main headings such as Work, Clothes, The Weekend, Country Life, etc. The drawings, and the jokes occasionally appended to them, are less a test of your (or my) sense of humour than a parlour game for measuring our acquaintance with the correct English attitudes towards the burning questions of each day since 1841. Mr. Bentley's choice of recent contributions—in The Pick of Punch, edited by Nicholas Bentley (Andre Deutsch, 15s.)— shows how the wind has shifted slightly since Mr. Muggeridge assumed the editorship; there is an increased disrespect for Authority and —happily—an extended range of fantasy writing. The volume suggests that the inten- tions adumbrated by Mr. Muggeridge in his Foreword—perpetual ridicule of everything sacred to everybody—may gradually be real- ised: Punch may yet become the world's best
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