Entered according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
THOS. A. M. WARD,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
PREFACE.
The Invention of Puppet Shows, Tumbling and other publicamusements, carries us back to a period in history long anteriorto the birth of Moses.
In fact, Games of Chance, as well as the sports and pastimesusually enjoyed in their Plays, by the early people of Egypt,were in their zenith in the reign of the Rameses.
Rameses the II. was a magnificent patron of letters as wellas art.
The "Sacred Library," which Diodorus mentions, has beendiscovered in his Palace, the Rameseum at Karnak.
Nine men of learning were attached to the person of thisKing, and at their head was a certain Kagabu, as "Master ofthe Rolls," (Books) a man "unrivaled in elegance of style anddiction."
From the pen of this master, who may have helped to trainthe mind of Moses, the King's adopted grandson, in "all thelearning of the Egyptians," we still possess the oldest Fairy Talein the world, a moral story, resembling that of Joseph and hisBrethren, composed for the King's son Meneptha, who afterwardsbecame the opponent of Moses, at the time of the exodusof the Jews from Egypt.
Our object is not so much with the antiquity of shows, as itis directly with the introduction of "Punch and Judy" intopolite society; in proper character, free from superfluous verbiage,and dressing the play in phraseology commensurate withthe progress of the age—good taste and refinement.
The performance of Punch in the streets of European cities,unpurified of the vulgar colloquies put into his mouth, by theman who works the Puppets, would not for an instant be toleratedby the people of this country.
[pg 4]"The Play of Punch and Judy," observes a writer in Harper'sMonthly, "was exhibited for a short time at a popularplace of amusement in New York City, in 1870, but did nottake sufficiently with the audience to induce the managers togo on with it."
The true cause of its failure, at the time, doubtless arose fromthe vulgar and impure language, used by the fellow that workedthe Figur