Punch and Judy

A popular British glove-puppet show for children, featuring Mr. Punch and his wife Judy.

Mr. Punch wears a jester's motley, is hunchbacked and his hooked nose almost meets his curved jutting chin. He carrries a stick, as large as himself, which he freely uses upon all the other characters in the show. He speaks in a bizarre rasping voice, produced by a contrivance known as a swozzle which the Punch & Judy man holds in his mouth.

A transcript of a typical Punch and Judy show in London of the 1840s can be found in Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor.

Featuring, as it does, a deformed, child-murdering, wife-beating psychopath, who performs appalling acts of violence and cruelty upon all those around him and escapes scot-free, it is greatly enjoyed by small children.