Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870

In Short

Published on August 20, 1870, by the Punchinello Publishing Company of New York, this issue brings together a chorus of nineteenth-century humorists skewering the fads, scandals, and absurdities of their day. At its center stands a serialization of Orpheus C. Kerr’s The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood, an American parody of Charles Dickens's unfinished final novel, set in the fictional town of Bumsteadville. Surrounding it are mock advice columns, comic verses, fake dispatches from the Franco-Prussian War, and satire directed at Wall Street speculators, New Jersey mosquitoes, and Sunday-school instructional books. Its survival offers a vivid snapshot of popular Gilded-Age humor.

The Story

The issue unfolds not as a single narrative, but as a carefully curated variety show of late-nineteenth-century American satire. It opens on a note of literary absurdity with Chapter XIV of The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood by Orpheus C. Kerr (the pen name of Robert Henry Newell). Set on a freezing Christmas Eve in "Bumsteadville," the chapter lampoons Dickensian sentimentality. Wealthy merchants give their underpaid clerks permission to buy damaged basement stock at cost, while railroad presidents order cheap market turkeys for their overworked staff.

Meanwhile, Montgomery Pendragon prepares for a mysterious walking match while wielding a heavy Indian club that he uses to accidentally dent plaster walls and smash hat-stands. He meets his sister Magnolia to complain about being driven outdoors in icy December, while Edwin Drood ponders marrying Miss Pendragon to "ruin a man" before contemplating a escape to Egypt, Illinois. After a jewelry peddler tries to sell Drood stretchable wedding rings designed to fit second wives, Drood meets an aged Irishwoman smoking a pipe by the turnpike. Later that night, a violent gale rocks the town. Morning reveals blown-down chimneys, a steeple clock ripped from Saint Cow's, and the organist Mr. Bumstead charging into a crowd with his coat on backward and a wet towel on his head, shrieking that his nephews and Edwin Drood vanished into the night after going out for a midnight walk.

Beyond the serialized parody, the issue pivots into topical comedy and cultural commentary. A mock guide to outdoor excursions offers cynical survival rules for picnics, advising readers to use fat women as human barricades against marauding city brigands and infants as impact buffers during steamboat brawls. "Mr. PUNCHINELLO" then reports on his vacation to the White Sulphur Springs of Virginia, where Northern and Southern politicians mingle over mint-juleps while an elderly African American patriarch, Uncle Aaron, explains that tourists only drink the foul-tasting sulfur water to cure indigestion brought on by eating too much wheat bread.

The mood shifts to literary satire with a grim reinterpretation of the nursery rhyme "Jack and Gill," recasting it as a horrific double suicide where Jack dashes his brains out on mountain rocks and Gill leaps after him in tragic despair. Rural humorist Hiram Green contributes a phonetic, dialect-heavy account of a nighttime battle against giant New Jersey mosquitoes armed with bayonets, a war he wins only by tricking the insect army into drinking lethal "Jersey Lightning" liquor. The issue draws toward a close with a rapid-fire financial column mocking Wall Street panics triggered by Jay Gould eating hot corn at a lunch counter, a absurd fake correspondence from Henri Rochefort in a French prison regarding the Franco-Prussian War, and a series of sarcastic answers to absurd reader letters.

How It Unfolds

The holiday gale at Bumsteadville The issue opens with Orpheus C. Kerr's Dickens parody, where cynical Christmas Eve charity gives way to a roaring winter storm and the chaotic disappearance of Edwin Drood and his companions following a night of strange dining-room encounters.

Cynical rules for public outings A satirical etiquette guide instructs readers on surviving summer picnics and steamboat trips, recommending that travelers deploy heavy companions and infant passengers as shields against rowdy mobs.

Observations at the mineral springs Mr. PUNCHINELLO visits Virginia’s White Sulphur Springs, observing political figures hobnobbing over drinks while Uncle Aaron offers a pragmatic explanation for why Northern and Southern tourists swallow the foul-tasting spring water.

The dark truth of nursery rhymes A mock-critical essay re-examines "Jack and Gill," framing the innocent childhood rhyme as a bloody, dark tragedy of parental neglect and mutual self-destruction on jagged rocks.

Warfare in New Jersey Country humorist Hiram Green recounts a slapstick midnight siege against a swarm of bayonet-bearing Jersey mosquitoes, finally neutralizing the insect brigade by offering them toxic local liquor.

Panics, dispatches, and absurd advice The publication concludes with Wall Street parodies where minor lunch orders cause market panics, mock European war dispatches involving a bottle of Schnapps, and snarky replies to reader inquiries.

The People

• Mr. Bumstead: The unhinged, heavily drinking organist of Bumsteadville. He stumbles through town with his coat on inside-out and a towel wrapped around his head, desperate to find his missing nephews after a wild Christmas Eve.
• Edwin Drood: A naive, cynical young man who contemplates fleeing his romantic entanglements by moving to Egypt, Illinois, only to vanish inexplicably after a late-night stroll during a winter gale.
• Montgomery Pendragon: A volatile young Southerner who wanders about Bumsteadville violently twirling a Kehoe's Indian club, smashing household furniture while insisting he is merely exercising to keep warm.
• Mr. PUNCHINELLO: The fictional editor and globetrotting mascot of the magazine. He travels to southern resorts, interviews local eccentrics, and offers biting, sarcastic commentary on modern society.
• Hiram Green: A plain-spoken, dialect-talking rustic whose attempt to get a restful night's sleep in New Jersey devolves into an all-out, furniture-smashing war against giant insects.
• Uncle Aaron: A former servant at the White Sulphur Springs who delivers sharp, common-sense wisdom regarding the foolish habits and diets of Northern and Southern tourists.

In Its Own Voice

"The princely merchant, in his counting-room, involuntarily experiences the softening, humanizing influence of the hour, and, in tones tremulous with unwonted emotion, privately directs his Chief-Clerk to tell all the other clerks, that, on this night of all the round year, they may, before leaving the store at 10 o'clock, take almost any article from that slightly damaged auction-stock down in the front cellar, at actual cost-price."

"Slap! bang! kick! sware! I couldn't stand it much longer."

"My business," said he, "is my own, but since the subject has been broached, I may as well let you know what it is."

What It's Really About

Beneath its slapstick humor and exaggerated parodies, this issue captures an American society negotiating the anxieties of the post-Civil War Era. The text targets the hypocrisy of Gilded-Age commercialism, poking fun at corporate heads who use cheap token gestures to cover up harsh working conditions and low wages. It reflects the lingering regional tensions of Reconstruction, using vacationing politicians at Virginia springs to show how former Union and Confederate figures easily reconciled over food and drink while ignoring larger social realities. Furthermore, the magazine attacks the pious, moralizing children's literature of the nineteenth century, demanding plain facts while lampooning the absurdity of hyper-didactic instructional stories.

Why Read It Today

This publication offers readers an authentic window into nineteenth-century American popular culture, humor, and print journalism. Rather than presenting high political speeches or formal histories, it reveals what ordinary citizens laughed at in the summer of 1870. Modern readers will find amusement in its sharp parodies of Dickensian tropes and its surprisingly modern cynicism toward corporate public relations, Wall Street rumor-mongering, and tourist traps.

However, approaching the text requires an appreciation for period context. The humor relies heavily on forgotten nineteenth-century political references, localized puns, and heavy phonetic eye-dialect that can slow down reading comprehension. Furthermore, the issue contains period racial tropes and casual stereotyping typical of Gilded-Age commercial media. For readers interested in American literary history, political satire, or the evolution of popular comedy, this brief issue remains an entertaining artifact of an era caught between traditional Victorian sentimentality and the modern industrial age.

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