Two-thirds of the zest with which foreign comic papers are read
is due to the fact that they caricature persons or social circles
with which the mass of their readers are not thoroughly familiar,
and whose habits and ways of looking at things they do not share
or only partly share. A good deal of the fun in _Punch_, for
instance, consists in making costermongers or cabmen quarrel with
the upper classes, in ridicule of Jeames's attempts to imitate
his master, of Brown's efforts to scrape acquaintance with a
peer, of the absurd figure cut by the "cad" in the hunting-field,
and of the folly of the city clerk in trying to dress and behave
like a guardsman. In short, the point of a great number of its
best jokes is made by bringing different social strata into sharp
comparison. The peculiarities of Irishmen and Scotchmen also
furnish rich materials to the caricaturist. He never tires of
illustrating the blunders and impudence of the one and the hot
patriotism and niggardliness of the other.
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