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I was dozing over the last half-dozen glasses of a bowl of punch (the rest of the club having departed) when the waiter at the British came into the coffee-room to remind me that it was Saturday night, and that in obedience to the New Police Act it was absolutely necessary that I should take my departure before Sunday morning—the door must be finally closed at twelve o'clock, and it then wanted but five minutes. This appeal, and a "Now, Sir, if you please," a few times repeated, were not more than half heard; sleep seized me irresistibly, and in twenty seconds more I was dreaming that I had fallen fast asleep, with the punch-bowl for a nightcap.

"Come, move on—make way here, will you though?—move on, you sir! No Punch and Judy now; it's unlegal by the law; ain't you awor o' the New Police Act what's put it down?" Such was the arbitrary order which in my dream Serjeant Higginbotham of the X division issued, as he pushed his way into the centre of a crowd of urchins assembled round that little stage on which Punch was playing off his antics in unapproachable style. As the words fell from his lips, they smote my heart with the fear that a revolution in the country must inevitably follow. Punch to be put down by Act of Parliament! Judy to be snatched away for ever by a vote of both Houses! Mirth, fun, jollity, to be legislated into nothing—in the passing of a clause, or the twinkling of the Speaker's eye! Impossible; put Punch down in one place, lo! he is up again in another; stifle his voice in the east, and hark! you hear him the next minute squeaking in the west, like the piping shepherd-boy, "as though he should never grow old." This was consolatory to my feelings; but yet methought, the mere intent, the bare threat of the legislature to banish the people's own Punch, their time-honoured favourite, would paralyse all London at first, and then all London would be seen on its legs rushing to the Queen's palace to petition!

To my astonishment, not a soul in that crowd took the smallest notice of Serjeant Higginbotham's imperative command to be off. Punch went on squeaking and rapping away; the troop of boys, girls, and miscellanies around, continued to grin, laugh, scream, and stretch their necks to stare over one another's heads as though they never could look enough; and what was more, the policeman, who had penetrated into the midst of them, and of whose presence they appeared so singularly heedless, stood there, grinning, laughing, screaming, and stretching his neck to stare too. There indeed stood Serjeant H., his truncheon dropping from one hand, while the other was tightly pressed against his side, where he seemed to be in imminent peril of a split. That truncheon he had scarce uplifted, when the laugh seized him, and his arm fell powerless. Serjeant Higginbotham, six feet high, was a little boy again. How he laughed and roared. I heard his "Ho! ho!" for days afterwards, and can even now see the tears run down his cheeks, fringing his whiskers like dewdrops on a bush.

Close by was a youngster flying his kite contrary to law; on the approach of a policeman, he let go, turned to run, caught a glimpse of Punch—and there he stood fascinated by the fun. His pursuer, who was close behind him, was just about to catch him by the collar, when he too stopped short, and with distended jaws almost doubled the horse-laugh of the side-aching serjeant. Up came a sweep with the illegal cry of 'we-weep' on his lips, but he could not break the law by giving utterance to the cry—for laughter. Presently came by a genius playing an organ, and another blowing a trumpet—the policemen heard not the unlawful music, and it suddenly ceased, stopped by the irresistible and all-absorbing Punch. A boy came next trundling his hoop, with 46 D trundling after him; in two minutes they were standing side by side, laughing from ear to ear. A dustman had just raised his voice and got out, "du—" when his bell seemed to stop of itself, and "My eye!" was all he could articulate. A lad behind a hackney-coach jumped down, scorning a three-miles ride, under the influence of the prevailing risibility. All were drawn insensibly into the vortex of laughter. Every violator of the new law, albeit aware of having fallen under the vigilant observation of the police, lost on the instant all sense of responsibility, all inclination to shun the danger of apprehension, and joining the crowd, became utterly unconscious of any law but the law of nature, and supremely blessed in ignorance of the very existence of a constable. More astounding still was the suddenness with which the rush of policemen from all quarters, pursuing the offenders, came to a stand-still. Each in turn followed his intended victim into the charmed circle, gave up the chase in the moment of success, and surrendered himself captive to Punch instead of taking a prisoner.

"And those who came to seize, remain'd to laugh."

At length, half the trades, half the schools, all the idlers, and all the policemen of the metropolis, seemed gathered there together. And there they all stood spell-bound, wrought upon by one common emotion; shaking their sides against one another, and sending up a roar, compared with which the thunder of the Danish kettle-drums and cannon of old was a dead silence.

Here, methought, is a lesson for legislators! They would put down that which puts down nuisances, and turns public disturbers into the happiest and most harmless of mortals! And they would suppress it by agents who came in contact with the enemy only to join his ranks, "for we have all of us one human heart." Put down Punch! Fifty Parliaments could never do it! There's a divinity doth hedge him. Punch for a time can suppress kite-flying, hoop-trundling, bell-ringing, and trumpet-blowing—which the law cannot; how then should Punch himself be put down? Immortal puppet! the true friend of the people, and the promoter of good-humour among all her Majesty's loving subjects!

Such would have been my reflections; but the accumulated roar of the laughing throng awoke me—when I found that the waiter was snoring very loud in the lobby of the coffee-room. The house had long been shut for the night; and having violated the law, I was obliged to content myself with a broiled bone and a bed at the British—with an extra tumbler of punch!

COMMENTARY upon the "New Police Act" (N^o.2.)

Designed Etched & Published by George Cruikshank June 1^st 1841

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