Puck, 1878-03-20 · page 10 of 16
Puck — March 20, 1878 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes Victorian-era courtship and gender relations. The title "The Affectionate Sex" refers to women, whom the cartoons mock for their emotional displays and romantic behavior. The upper illustrations show women pursuing men in various public settings (near a church, in parks), with captions like "O, Adelia!" and "O, you darling!"—exaggerating feminine emotional expressiveness. The lower illustrations depict similar scenes with dialogue like "Stupid little thing; isn't she, Charley?" suggesting men find women's affection ridiculous or bothersome. The "Answers for the Curious" section provides humorous responses to reader questions about etiquette, romance, and chess, maintaining the satirical tone about social pretension and gender dynamics of the period.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
PUCK. “O, Adelia!!” newers for the Anrions. U. B.—Blowed. E iGHAM.—Yes, B. F, J. T.—It is a home product. HaseLtinr.—She will come round all right if you give her time enough. NATALIZ.—We have got the same old last year’s grudge in this year’s nest against spring poets, one of them you seem to be which. EvritrosyNne.— We must draw the line somewhere. We admit we are degraded, but we never reached that depth that per- “mitted us to allude to ‘a gem of purest ray serene” as a gemt of purest gly- cerine. It takes one of the graces like yourself to summon up nerve enough for such an outrage. Quitno.—The qualifications necessary for a man to become a policeman are that the applicant be under thirty years of age, at least five feet eight inches in _ height, of good moral character, a citizen, able to read and write, and never under sentence for felony. Besides he must have political influence and a club. R.D. Z.—In chess you cannot move your knight in a semi-circle. That is, if your partner is familiar with the game. We are ignorant of the name of the man who perpetrated the first knight, but it is historically supposed to have been a son THE AFFECTIONATE “O, Doral!” “Stupid little thing; isn’t she, Charley ?”” “Horrid, great, fat thing; don’t you think so, George ?” “O, you darling!” of Saturn, and that it was the cause of the first disturbance in the household of Jupiter. The whereabouts of young Saturn are unknown, but should he come sud- denly to earth he would probably have a few remarks to make on the subject of Bob Ingersoll and the unsoundness of his views on h—. K., PRIVATE SECKETARY TO THE ABDHOON OF SWAT,—We have received your complimentary notice, ‘Thanks, It is true that you rather weaken the extreme nicety of your remarks by comparisons with the German; but what else can we expect of a man who has spent the best years of his youth in tackling unpronounce- able consonants, until, carried away with pride at his victory, nothing that does not savor of the Teutonic will satisfy his de- praved taste? But recollect, proud young man, that Puck doesn't claim to satisfy great and'lofty minds like yours, Puck rests content in mildly amusing those who ask no more than English. Puck doesn't pledge himself to furnish translatable mirth—that will pass muster before a Teutonic intellect like yours. Besides, if we are to judge from the translation you sent us of what you think humorous, we don’t regret our own American short- comings half so much. And finally, if swe wanted to air our German, we should find out the difference between a p and an h, and when we wished to refer toa Hypotheke, we shouldn’t call it a Hytho- peke. [Ve shouldn't. comicbooks.com