PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 99.



October 4, 1890.




MR. PUNCH'S PRIZE NOVELS.

NEW SERIES.--IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT.

This age has been called an Age of Progress, an Age of Reform, an Age
of Intellect, an Age of Shams; everything in fact except an Age of
Prizes. And yet, it is perhaps as an Age of Prizes that it is destined
to be chiefly remembered. The humble but frantic solver of Acrostics
has had his turn, the correct expounder of the law of Hard Cases
has by this time established a complete code of etiquette; the
doll-dresser, the epigram-maker, the teller of witty stories, the
calculator who can discover by an instinct the number of letters in
a given page of print, all have displayed their ingenuity, and have
been magnificently rewarded by prizes varying in value from the mere
publication of their names, up to a policy of life insurance, or a
completely furnished mansion in Peckham Rye. In fact, it has been
calculated by competent actuaries that taking a generation at about