Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
This evasive reply could not be expected to satisfy Mr. Bolster, who
returns to the charge in _The Tittersham Observer_ of the 23rd May. Side
by side with the sale figures of the Nether Wambleton Parish Magazine he
prints those of his own periodical, which for the same period never fell
below sixty and on the occasion of the Harvest Festival reached a total
of seventy-nine. With scathing emphasis he points out that the Nether
Wambleton figures cease with the month in which Little Titley came down
to one penny, since which the latter has gone up by leaps and bounds, no
fewer than eighty-four copies of the May number having already been
sold. Moreover, these are _net_ sales, while the Nether Wambleton
figures (for all he knows) represent gross circulation, including
copies gratuitously distributed at mothers' meetings, choir treats
and other gatherings.
It might have been thought that Mr. Potts would have withdrawn from
the controversial arena after this painful exposure, but with a
persistence worthy of a better cause he rejoins in a long and irrelevant
letter in _The Tittersham Observer_ of the 30th May. He undoubtedly
scores a point in maintaining that the Nether Wambleton Parish Magazine
is the largest in Wessex on the strength of the fact that its page is
half-an-inch longer and a quarter-of-an-inch wider than that of its
rival, but in other respects his reply can hardly be considered
convincing. For instance, he lays stress on the fact that the gigantic
gooseberry grown in his parish and chronicled in his current issue was
appreciably greater in diameter than that described in the corresponding
issue of the rival publication. He also dwells on the superior artistic
quality of the programme of the Penny Reading in his parish hall as
compared with that of the Little Titley Temperance Reed Band at their
annual concert. And, finally, with ill-timed levity, he disclaims any
intention of "bolstering up" his parish magazine by crude appeals to
democratic sentiment--an allusion to the name of the Vicar of Little
Titley which has been deeply resented by the numerous admirers of that
esteemed cleric.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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