Puck's Hint for "Hospital Sunday"

Not every centerfold threw a punch. For the Christmas 1884 number Puck turned its pen to charity. A robed figure of Charity, arms full of flowers, bends toward a barefoot boy on crutches with a bandaged foot, while the cherub Puck steps toward the reader and gestures at the collection can between them. "Hospital Sunday" was the annual day when congregations took up funds for the city's hospitals, and the magazine is leaning on its audience to give. The sentiment is frank and unironic, the appeal aimed straight out of the page. A humor weekly built on ridicule could also, once a year, ask its readers plainly to open their wallets for a sick child.