For 7,852 weekends (1841-1992) Punch magazine

was packed along with other essential things to be taken out of town for a weekend in the country. The thinking class relished its erudite and acerbic comments on politics/business/society and returned to town amused and better informed. British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel (so distinguished that we named an Ontario county after him) was dubbed irreverently 'Sir Rhubarb Pill' just as University of Toronto students Wayne and Schuster once made fun of the Warden of Hart House, Burgon Bickersteth, as 'Bourbon Lickerbreath'. The cartoons in Punch showcased the foibles and follies of the Establishment.

One of its famous cartoons showed a bride and groom attacking one another behind their wedding cake and in front of appalled guests. "There are still a lot of things they haven't worked out", the groomsman remarks to a shocked onlooker. A tempestuous domestic scene introduced the famous spousal riposte "So, I'm not the man you thought I was? Is it my fault that you're a lousy judge of character?". In other circumstances, two business men sit in a clubroom. One says to the other, "I'm a man of principle. Any money passed under this table would commit me to honouring my obligations". And when the 'f-word' was becoming too common, a cartoon flashback showed a Victorian publisher saying to a bonneted young woman sitting before his desk "We like the plot, Miss Austen, but all that 'effing' will have to go".

It was a sad day when Punch ceased publication in 1992. A certain Mr Mohammed Al Fayed tried to re-launch it in 1996, presumably to resurrect a venerable British institution, but he soon fell afoul of another institution. The magazine died again in 2002.

This space threatened in the spring to re-visit the gift copy of The New Yorker cartoons that had come this way last Christmas. Perhaps, with a long holiday weekend looming, this is as good a time as any to do so. When I was in Stratford with some friends to see The Duchess of Malfithe other weekend I was reminded of the group of Greek theatre-goers pictured in The New Yorker. During the interval at an ancient amphitheatre one opines, "Aeschylus is good but I go to the theatre to relax". He is echoed in 2006 by those who say "Coriolanus"? Heavens, no. We're going to see "South Pacific". Further nonsense from the same source follows.

 A lifeboat full of people in costume pulls away from a sinking cruise ship. A uniformed man shouts to some scowling passengers, "Be patient. The judging of funny hats will resume as soon as we get ashore". One is reminded of those who nowadays can't even take a memorial service seriously. There has to be lots of laughter.

 An exhausted crew hauls great blocks of stone towards an uncompleted Egyptian pyramid while a threatening overseer cracks a whip. "Oh, stop complaining", says a voice, "It's an honour to be associated with an enterprise of this magnitude". It is always more comforting to see oneself as an 'associate' than as a slave.

 A 1933 cartoon has a group of newly unemployed men standing outside the office of what would now be called a 'human resources manager'. One says to the five others "He pointed out that it's his depression, too, not just yours and mine". But having a job was better.

 Two urbanites are walking quite alone on the pavement beside a roadway choked with automobile traffic. A motorist hails them at a stop light. "Anything wrong?", he shouts. Except at intersections, those who walk do live longer.

 Returning to ancient times, specifically to the Colosseum circa 250 A.D., a crowd watches a martyr and a lion standing side by side at lecterns facing the crowd. One spectator remarks "I found the old format much more exciting".

John Updike whose recent book The Terrorist has been reviewed as being a bit thin, wrote in a foreword to the book of cartoons in question, "The microcosm of the New Yorker cartoons reflects the cultural macrocosm". For readers of the The Sun, that means that they 'zero in' on small 'slices of life' that say a lot about human experience in general. Rebecca Mead, the Oxfordeducated staff writer at the U.S. magazine, says about the more recent cartoons that they reflect the hypocrisy of a culture that enriches the richest and demeans everybody else. In that way she equates The New Yorker's mission as social critic with that of the defunct Punch. As a case in point, take the drawing in which one kid says to another, "I don't know what my Dad does but whatever it is it makes him sick at his stomach". Clearly, he worked for a multinational (read: U.S.based) corporation. Or, consider the following.

Two men sit in an office. One says "I wake up screaming at six-thirty and I'm here in the office by nine". Those who have read Joel Bakan's The Corporation: the Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (Viking, 2004) will understand the modern slavery from which no emancipation is in sight. 'Corporate America' now rules the world as Britain's East India and other rapacious companies once did. It buys both democratic and autocratic governments and threatens world peace and the hope of a return to 'normalcy' as much as does any other group of scheming rogues. Imperial Rome diverted the attention of its populace by providing the legendary bread and games. Today's corporate Caesars do it with fast food and Hollywood films, creating an overweight and dumbeddown public. Even the bread and games with which they beguile 21st Century plebs enrich the already rich, as Rebecca Mead understood.

In a 1962 New Yorker cartoon a vast crowd looks up to a Communist reviewing stand. "You're probably wondering why we asked you here", says a commissar. On Tuesday morning we'll also still be wondering why our politicians defend Israel's right to exist and the beleaguered Palestinians' right to be dispossessed persons. And other things.