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 the puppet-shows. The front page of the first number represents Punch in his little street theatre, hanging the Devil, who in the agonies of strangulation, with his tongue lolling out, seems loth to drop his pitchfork from his weakened hand. Nine years previously, in January, 1832, a comic weekly paper, Punchinello, had been started in the same office, 13, Wellington Street, Strand, but expired with the issue of its tenth number. Punchinello was represented with the nose of the modern Punch, but be had no bump or peaked cap.

The origin of Punch is veiled in obscurity. The general belief of the few writers on the subject is that Silvio Fiorillo invented Pulcinella about the year 1600, and introduced him into the staff of theatrical buffoons at Naples. Quadrio in his Storia d'ogni Poesia, would spell the name "Pullicinello" from Pulliceno or "turkey-cock," an allusion to the beak of that bird. Baretti has it Pulcinella, or "hen-chicken," whose cry is said to resemble the voice of Punch. The earliest record in relation to the