Friday 28 January 2011

1846: Punch - "Remote Notions of Royalty"

Jester kicking the world (Punch, volume 1, 1841)Lé magâsîn "Punch" rapportit entouor la vîsite d'la Reine Victoria, not' Duc, en 1846:
"Punch" magazine reported on the Royal visit to Jersey in 1846:
On the occasion of Her Majesty's visit to Jersey, several of the poor people, who had never seen a live Queen before, openly expressed their disappointment. They had expected to see Her Majesty arrive in her coronation robes, with the sceptre in one hand and the ball in the other, just as they had always seen her represented in the engravings....

We heard one of the natives, pointing to the Royal flunky, say with great glee, "Oi chou la his weeskers a pour voyoi oukaree boy kroikoi!" No one could tell us what the above meant; and as there is no dictionary of the Jersey language published, we are sorry we cannot translate it for the benefit of our readers. It must have been very funny, for all the by-standers laughed at it immensely ; so we give it as a specimen of a joke in the Channel Islands. It was the only one we heard during a week's sojourn.

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