Nothing gets your attention like a Punch

While cleaning out my parent's house, I found three volumes of Punch, the magazine. Here is what I have found out about it.

The first edition of Punch was publishe in July of 1841. Its founders, wood engraver Ebenezer Landells and writer Henry Mayhew, got the idea for the magazine from from a satirical French paper, Charivari. Landells insisted that Punch should be less bitter than other British comic publications and of higher literary standard. The name was hit upon at an early meeting -- someone remarked that the magazine should be like a good punch mixture -- nothing without Lemon (referring to Mark Lemon, the magazine's first editor), whereupon Mayhew shouted "A capital idea! Let us call the paper Punch!"

I have seen these books laying around my parents house forever. I always thought they had an interesting cover, but for some reason, I never opened it. Monday night I flipped one open and this was the page that caught my eye....yes, knitting.

The caption reads, "The Prime Minister has promised to receive a deputation on the subject of Female Suffrage after Easter."