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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 our 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.

MR. PUNCH IN WIG AND GOWN

[Illustration]




[Illustration: “UP BEFORE THE BEAK”]




                               MR. PUNCH
                                IN WIG
                               AND GOWN

                       THE LIGHTER SIDE OF BENCH
                                AND BAR

                       _WITH 120 ILLUSTRATIONS_

                                  BY

                       H. STACY MARKS, SIR JOHN
                          TENNIEL, GEORGE DU
                        MAURIER, CHARLES KEENE,
                         PHIL MAY, E. T. REED,
                       L. RAVEN-HILL, J. BERNARD
                        PARTRIDGE, A. S. BOYD,
                           TOM BROWNE, G. D.
                         ARMOUR, W. F. THOMAS,
                              AND OTHERS.

                            [Illustration]

                     PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH
                      THE PROPRIETORS OF “PUNCH”

                     THE EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO. LTD.




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




STATING THE CASE

[Illustration]

Mr. Punch has done his share towards bringing about various law
reforms. We find him hammering away continually for many years at the
Law’s delays, its costliness, its inconsistencies, and the evils he
has satirised, the inconveniences he has laughed at have largely been
remedied. He makes fun of the jesting judge and the bullying barrister,
while he is genially amusing at the expense of the timid and blundering
witness, and the youthful vanity or elderly pomposity of members of the
bench and bar. He is rightly bitter now and then when he touches on
the comparatively light sentences inflicted on audacious, but wealthy,
swindlers, and the comparatively heavy penalties exacted from lesser,
poorer, and more ignorant burglars and pickpockets; but in the main
he devotes himself to the lighter side of law and justice and the
professions that are concerned in its administration.

Here and there you come across echoes of famous law suits--of the
Tichborne trial, the Parnell Commission; here and there you have
reminders of Bradlaugh’s fight to get into Parliament without taking
the oath; of the days when London was agitated by the Fenian scare and
valorous householders were sworn in as special constables, and again
when everybody passing into the law courts had to open his bag that
the policeman on duty might be assured that he was not carrying a bomb
inside it.

The reading matter is particularly apt and good; not a little of it
was written by barristers in the intervals of waiting for briefs, and
the writers were thus intimately acquainted with the grievances they
ventilated, and were often suffering the hardships of the briefless
themselves when they sat down to make fun of them.




[Illustration]

MR. PUNCH IN WIG AND GOWN


OUR LEGAL CORRESPONDENCE

NOVICE.--(_a_) Don’t, unless you want penal servitude for life. (_b_)
Any respectable burglar. (_c_) We do not answer questions on chiropody
in this column.

