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Victorian Humour @VictorianHumour
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I’m particularly fond of the sub-genre of Victorian jokes in which women rebuff the unwanted advances of amorous male suitors. They’re often rather savage!
- Tit-Bits (31 Dec 1892)
Here’s another one. The set-up is longer, but the punchline is far more brutal!
- Tit-Bits (1892)
Another Victorian courtship comes to a brutal close!
- Tit-Bits (1893)
The formula of these jokes is probably starting to become clear now. Still, I quite like this one, chiefly because of the man’s absurdly over-the-top declarations of love...
- Tit-Bits (1893).
Here’s another Victorian joke about proposals. Stick with it...
- Tit-Bits (1893)
Another savage burn!
- Tit-Bits magazine, 11 March 1893.
Ouch! I’m beginning to feel a bit sorry for these Victorian men now...
- Tit-Bits magazine, 11 March 1893.
The women in these Victorian jokes are positively immune to pick-up lines!
- Tit-Bits (1893)
I posted this Victorian joke a while back, but it fits the theme!
Proof that the sick burns continued *after* marriage!
Another old one...
Turns out I've posted quite a few jokes on this theme...
One more for now...
A subtler - but no less devastating - burn!
- Answers magazine (1891)
This guy definitely had it coming. What manner of wooing is that?!
- Answers (1891)
Damn, Miss Clara is ice cold!
- Answers (1891)
Another Victorian burn, this time involving a married couple. There’s something more affectionate about this one...
- Tit-Bits (1893)
Another Victorian suitor savagely rebuffed!
- Tit-Bits (1886)
Another blistering Victorian burn, this time across class boundaries!
- Answers (1891)
It’s amazing how many Victorian jokes were published on the theme of women mocking men’s romantic advances. I’m finding several of them in each issue of Tit-Bits and Answers in the 1890s...
- Answers (1891)
Note to self: never attempt small-talk with Miss Symphony...
- Tit-Bits (1886)
Another Victorian chap sees his attempts at romantic conversation mercilessly shot down!
- Tit-Bits (1892)
I don't seem to be able to let this thread die. Here's another one...
- Pearson's Weekly (1898)
After all these botched attempts at flirting, I feared things wouldn't end well for poor Mr Briggs....
- Pearson's Weekly (1897)
Another pair of jokes for this seemingly never-ending thread!
- Tit-Bits (1893)
- Pearson's Weekly (1891)
As romantic rejections go, this one is going to be difficult to top...
- Pearson's Weekly (1891)
For the sake of balance...
- Pearson's Weekly (1896)
Blimey! This proposal-rejection joke is the most eye-wateringly brutal one yet...
- Tit-Bits (1889)
A gentler (and perhaps even encouraging?) retort this time...
- Tit-Bits (1901)
Another romantic rejection joke!
- Tit-Bits (1901)
Yet ANOTHER variation on the theme of romantic rejection. I’m beginning to think that Victorian joke writers must have been particularly unlucky in love...
- Tit-Bits (1901)
At last, a fresh take on the Victorian proposal joke!
- Tit-Bits magazine (1901)
There are *so many* of these jokes in which Victorian women cut amorous men down to size. In this one she even gets his name wrong!
- Tit-Bits (1901)
A blistering retort!
- Tit-Bits (1901)
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
Another Victorian joke in which a male suitor gets comically rebuffed by a young lady. There’s seemly no end to the genre!
- Tit-Bits (1901)
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
A twist on the usual proposal-rejection joke!
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
More Victorian advice on how to deal with the unwanted advances of aspiring male suitors!
- Pearson’s Weekly (1895)
Brutal.
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
- Tit-Bits (1901)
If you're wondering what happened to these Victorian men after their romantic advances were rejected, I think I've found the answer...
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
Ouch!
- Tit-Bits (1901)
I'm afraid that these sick Victorian burns didn't end after marriage...
- Pearson's Weekly (1895)
- Rare Bits (1881)
I still can't bring myself to let this thread die. Another delicious put-down from a witty Victorian lady!
- Rare Bits (1882)
- Rare Bits (1881)
Brutal.
--------
He: "He's a wonderful mindreader. He told me everything in my mind in four or five minutes."
She: "Yes - a fine mindreader - but slow."
- 'Men, Women and Mirth' (1909)
She: "You've been making love to some other girl."
He: "How do you know?"
She: "Because you've improved so."
- 'Men, Women and Mirth' (1909)
- Laughter (1890)
'Her Answer'
- The Comedy of Life (1907)
Frankly, this bizare attempt at flirting got everything it deserved. What kind of response was he hoping for?!
- Rare Bits (1882)
Ouch!
- Tit-Bits (1881)
This cartoon is from the 1930s rather than Victorian, but it fits the theme!

The Bore (dramatically): “Picture the jungle by night - the prowling lion in search of prey, and me lying a few feet away.”

The Bored: “Quite! No need to picture the last part. I can HEAR you.”
- Tit-Bits (1882)
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Brace yourselves for a SHOCKING revelation! The term "curate's egg" - meaning something that is partly bad, but also partly good - is typically thought to originate from a Punch cartoon by George du Maurier. But... [/1]
George du Maurier's cartoon was published in Punch on 9 November 1895. Here's a joke published in Pearson's Weekly nearly five months earlier, on the 19 June 1895. [/2]
This wasn't unusual - in fact, lots of jokes that are widely credited to the genius of Punch's cartoonists were actually written by other people, or sent in by friends and readers. See Du Maurier's system of 'joke pots'. [/3]
Read 25 tweets
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In 1875 a man named George Vasey published a book on 'The Philosophy of Laughter and Smiling.' He mounted a whole-hearted assault on the moral and physiological evils of laughter, but was more complimentary about smiling.
Full Text: archive.org/details/philos…
#NationalSmileDay
The first two pages of Chapter XV provide a good insight into George Vasey's thoughts about laughter..
archive.org/stream/philoso…
#NationalSmileDay
Vasey was particularly damning about mothers and nurses who tickled their children and thereby induced them into the injurious - and sometimes FATAL - habit of laughing.
Read 14 tweets

Related threads

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🔥This week's hot topic: President Trump may be able to appoint a pro-life Supreme Court judge soon after Anthony Kennedy's sudden "retirement."

📣This was discussed on Real Time with Bill Maher.

[Naive aside: I always thought judges were supposed to be impartial.]
💥That’s the thing. A man and a woman have sex.

⚡️The woman gets an unwanted pregnancy.

😔Other than possibly chipping in for the cost of the abortion, the man’s life is rarely complicated again.

💭Many never even find out.
❓So why do women have abortions?

‼️No one wants to have an abortion.

💥And no, they shouldn’t be punished. If so, the man should be equally punished since the man is 50% responsible—or more than 50% in many cases. Here are some NIH study results.
Read 25 tweets
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Hmmmm, I am running too many threads already. But how about a "#FBPE-people attacking Tories"-thread? It's clearly a worthwhile endeavor. Feel free to pitch in.
Exhibit one is a complete Role Playing Game adventure. Man. did they have an anti-tory blast with that one:

Just copying in from old threads. Exhibit two #FBPE-person stomping a tory. Well-deserved I might add.

Read 56 tweets
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The 14th amdt turns 150 years old this year on July 9. It is the closest we’ve come to writing into the constitution what we claimed in the Declaration of Independence. If you’re forced to pick one, choose the 14th - above the 1st, the 2nd, or the FIF. Sorry Dave Chappelle.
2/x I’m using this as a thread to post one tweet a day about the fourteenth amendment until its 150th anniversary on July 9th. John Bingham, republican of Ohio, is credited as the principal author of Section 1 of the amendment, which contains its substantive rights provisions.
3/x I sort of lied when I said I would post one tweet per day until July 9th to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 14th. Some ideas don’t fit in one tweet. So let’s say one thread per day - short ones:
Read 288 tweets
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Here's a thought or two for all you sensible #FBPE people...

Perhaps we should not place so much emphasis on demanding a vote on the "final deal".

In the first place, there's a quite high probability that May will either prove to be incapable of getting that far, and she might
not even intend to. It's quite possible she intends to delay until we crash out of the EU with no deal at all.

Secondly, we have a clear case, with good, solid evidence, that the very narrow "win" in the advisory referendum was totally invalid. Given that the win was dishonest,
there can be no excuse for our feeble negotiators to continue with their charade, and no reason why EU negotiators should waste any more of their time on such a fraudulent farce.

May's Article 50 letter should be withdrawn, now.

And that brings me to the third reason why we
Read 5 tweets
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Here's a critique of the UK database entries of our Financial Secrecy Index, from a lawyer at Clifford Chance - one of the world's ten biggest law firms (per Wikipedia). And what follows is a response on the points raised.
To begin, we really value expert feedback. We had a nearly two-year review process before the Jan.2018 release, which we were delighted to find brought in a great many stakeholders, including experts, users and subject jurisdiction policymakers..
You can find more information about the methodology and review, including a statistical analysis by the European Commission's index experts, here: financialsecrecyindex.com/introduction/m…
Read 139 tweets
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Things that surprised/amazed me about Japan, an ongoing thread.

(More likely UI than food, but you know this already.)

It’s my first time here. Please comment away and/or point out my cultural insensitivities!
1. A very friendly immigration officer and I laughed together, and when I said “I don’t really know where I’ll be staying,” he actually applauded it.
2. Very nice and clean train from the airport, with power sockets, and vending machines onboard.

Tons of solar panels passed by on the way.
Read 427 tweets

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