When we consider the several episodes of Mr. Punch's abhorrent history, we are reluctantly forced to the conclusion that his story is even less informed with morality than that of Richard III. The crookbacked king comes to a bad end at last; he meets with the just retribution for his many misdeeds; and he falls before the sword of Richmond. But Mr. Punch comes to a good end, and so far as we may know, he lives happy ever after, like the princes and princesses of the fairytales. He may even marry again and have another child, to be made away with in its turn. The more we consider his misdeeds and his misadventures the more shocking they are to our moral sense. Mr. Punch appears as a monster of such hideous mien that to be hated he needs but to be seen. This is how he must appear to every one of us who applies a moral standard to the drama, and who is willing to hold every character in a play to a strict accountability for his words and deeds. If we apply this moral standard to the play of Punch and Judy, then that play must be dismissed as profoundly and hopelessly immoral, carrying ethical infection to all who are so unfortunate as to be spectators at its performance. And more particularly, it is an absolutely unfit piece for the young, whose immature minds need to be guarded against everything which might tend to confuse the delicate distinctions between right and wrong. But, of course, we do not apply a moral standard to the sayings and doings of Mr. Punch, for the plain and sufficient reason that he is not a human being. He is not a man and a brother, upon whom we may be tempted to pattern ourselves. He is but a six-inch puppet, a thing of shreds and patches, a wooden-headed doll, vitalized for a moment only by the hand concealed inside his flimsy body with its flaunting colors. He is too fantastic, too impossible, too unreal, too unrelated to any possible world, for us to feel called upon to frown upon his misdeeds or to take them seriously. He is a joke, and we know that he is a joke, and all the children know that he is only a joke. Even the youngest child is never tempted to believe in his existence and to be moved to follow his example or to imitate his dark deeds. The proof of the pudding is in the eating; and the proof of a play is in the effect it produces upon the spectators. We may question whether any one of the millions of performances of the lamentable tragedy of Mr. Punch has suggested to a single father the fatal neglect of his offspring or to a single husband the possibility of wife-murder. And we may doubt whether any child, after witnessing Mr. Punch's murderous combats with the policeman and the devil, has ever felt any lessening of his respect for those two time-honored guardians of law and order. [Illustration: Punch on his steed] [Illustration: Punch teaches Jack Ketch how to hang a man] [Illustration: Punch in prison] [Illustration: Punch kills the Devil]