Mr. Punch's Cockney Humour by J. A. Hammerton (best time to read books txt) 📗

Cockney humour smacks, of course, of the town and makes up in smartness and shrewdness what it lacks in mellowness. The Cockney is as a rule a conscious humorist; you laugh with him very often, whereas you nearly always laugh at the rustic humorist.

George Du Maurier concerned himself a good deal with Cockney character, but he was not in sympathy with the Cockney; generally he had an obvious contempt for him, and most of his jokes turn on the dropped H, the mispronounced word, and educational deficiencies. He portrays some of the Cockney's superficial characteristics; he despises him too much to be able to get at the heart of him and reveal his character.

Take Phil May's pictures and jokes, and the difference is at once apparent. He was fully alive to the Cockney's deficiencies of manner and culture; now and then he quite genially and without the least touch of scorn or self-complacency makes fun of them; but he really gives you the Cockney character. Take, for instance, such a picture as his "Politics and Gallantry," his "I say, 'Arry, don't we look frights!" his "Informal Introduction"—(the self-consciousness of the girl's expression, and the blatant pride of the man's)—here, and in almost any of his drawings you turn to, you have the absolutely natural Cockney; his types are full of character and so true and free from condescension that not only are we moved irresistibly to laugh at them, but the Cockney himself would be the first to recognise their truth and to laugh joyously at them too. We may say pretty much the same of Charles Keene, of Mr. Raven-Hill, of Mr. Bernard Partridge, and of others of the "Punch" artists represented here, who illustrate the essential Cockney character, and do not go on the easy assumption that dropped H's and mispronounced words and aggressive vulgarity are the beginning and the end of it.

Cockney humour smacks, of course, of the town and makes up in smartness and shrewdness what it lacks in mellowness. The Cockney is as a rule a conscious humorist; you laugh with him very often, whereas you nearly always laugh at the rustic humorist.

George Du Maurier concerned himself a good deal with Cockney character, but he was not in sympathy with the Cockney; generally he had an obvious contempt for him, and most of his jokes turn on the dropped H, the mispronounced word, and educational deficiencies. He portrays some of the Cockney's superficial characteristics; he despises him too much to be able to get at the heart of him and reveal his character.

Take Phil May's pictures and jokes, and the difference is at once apparent. He was fully alive to the Cockney's deficiencies of manner and culture; now and then he quite genially and without the[Pg 6] least touch of scorn or self-complacency makes fun of them; but he really gives you the Cockney character. Take, for instance, such a picture as his "Politics and Gallantry," his "I say, 'Arry, don't we look frights!" his "Informal Introduction"—(the self-consciousness of the girl's expression, and the blatant pride of the man's)—here, and in almost any of his drawings you turn to, you have the absolutely natural Cockney; his types are full of character and so true and free from condescension that not only are we moved irresistibly to laugh at them, but the Cockney himself would be the first to recognise their truth and to laugh joyously at them too. We may say pretty much the same of Charles Keene, of Mr. Raven-Hill, of Mr. Bernard Partridge, and of others of the "Punch" artists represented here, who illustrate the essential Cockney character, and do not go on the easy assumption that dropped H's and mispronounced words and aggressive vulgarity are the beginning and the end of it.

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