How Punch And Judy Came To England

The heyday of the puppet show in England was dnrig the last century. Long before then strolling showmen bad exhibited "drolls" or "motions" - as the English puppets were known in the early days - to crowds of gaping rustios, but it was not nntil tbe time of Steele and Addison tbat the puppet show became a fashionable amusement, patxonized by upper tendom. Pnlcinella came to London in 1666, ■when an Italian puppet player set up Ms booth at Charing Cross and paid a small rental to tbe overseersof St. Martin's parish. His name was at once Englished into Puuchinello. which was Eoon to b8 completely Anglicized as Punch.