sought to belittle the popularity of the talkative woman, and to hint that the public had had enough of her long before the author recorded "the tragedy of thin shoes." The articles gave a wonderful fillip to Punch, sending up his sales, it has been recorded, by "leaps and bounds." In 1845, says the historian of Punch, "'Mrs. Caudle' burst upon the town. In common with a few other things achieved by Punch, it created a national furore, and set the whole country laughing and talking. Other nations soon took up the conversation and the laughter, and 'Mrs. Caudle' passed into the popular mind and took a permanent place in the language in an incredibly short space of time."[1]
Another writer in recording the success of "Mrs. Caudle," has hinted at a reason for their popularity. The lectures "were welcomed by laughing thousands. They appealed to English domesticity. They were drolleries to be enjoyed over tea and toast—(some of them written to dictation on a bed of sickness, racked by rheumatism)—as understandable in the kitchen as in the drawing-room—by the mechanic's wife as by her grace, slumbering under the shadow of her ducal coronet. Husbands poked the points at their wives, and wives read and laughed, vowing that Mrs. Caudle was very like Mrs. ——. Every married lady throughout these pleasant realms saw a likeness here; but to none was the page a looking-glass. A vast secret this for a popular subject. . . . Mrs. Caudle was the next-door neighbour of every married woman in England."[2]
Ebenezer Landells, whose record of Baylis's prophecy
- ↑ "[The History of Punch]]," by M. H. Spielmann, p. 291.
- ↑ "The Life and Remains of Douglas Jerrold," by his son Blanchard Jerrold, p. 219.
