By 1940 women’s wartime role had well and truly changed as a fascinating cartoon which appeared in the 13 March 1940 edition of Punch tried to document.
A Warrior’s Welcome Home | Stephen Basdeo
The Comic History of Oliver Cromwell (1847) | Gilbert Abbot á Beckett
In those days, a joke would lead the perpetrator to the gibbet, and a pun was so highly penal—as, perhaps, it ought to be—that a dull dog who had dropped one by mistake, was called upon to find heavy securities for his good behaviour.
The Comic History of the Peasants’ Revolt | Gilbert Abbot a Beckett
“Ah!” said the bookseller, after a pause; “nothing now succeeds unless it’s in the comic line. We have comic Latin grammars, and comic Greek grammars; indeed, I don’t know but what English grammar, too, is a comedy altogether. All our tragedies are made into comedies by the way they are performed; and no work sells without comic illustrations to it. I have brought out several new comic works, which have been very successful. For instance, The Comic Wealth of Nations; The Comic Parliamentary Speeches; The Comic Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners, with an Appendix containing the Comic Dietary Scale; and the Comic Distresses of the Industrious Population. I even propose to bring out a Comic Whole Duty of Man. All these books sell well: they do admirably for the nurseries of the children of the aristocracy. In fact they are as good as manuals and text-books.”
Sir Robin William V. Harcourt Hood, M. P.
Whenever a politician proposes raising a new tax or cutting a public service, a newspaper columnist will often respond that the proposed changes are ‘Reverse Robin Hood’. Alternatively, those who look favourably upon governmental tax and finance reforms might attempt to portray the politician in question as embodying Robin Hood values.
“The Railway Robin Hood” (1868)
The Victorians hated the ever-increasing price of rail travel just as much as we do today. In this ballad from “Punch”, Robin Hood is a ‘robbing’ Rail company boss.