A Penny For Them...

[Corporal Clott]

Looking through a second-hand bookshop, I found a ?The Best of Chums? book. It celebrates the Boy?s Paper "Chums" that ran from 1892 until 1941. Goebbles, who never let an opportunity pass, probably chalked this up as another victory for the Nazis. ?Mein Fuhrer! I haff more good news! Der Editor of ?Chums? has capitulated!? Even sadder is the realisation that Chums ended up as a dog food. I can imagine the Daschunds saying, ?Aha! Und now ve are eating it!? One item that caught my eye was: ?20,000 PENNIES GIVEN AWAY. THE ?CHUMS? MEN HAD AN EXCITING TIME.? It appears the distributors of this worthy publication were ordered to give away 20,00 pennies. (Anyone who wants to work out what that is in new money is welcome to do so.) Just to boys, mind you. The photographs indicate this happened in the 1900?s before WW1. So presumably Mrs Pankhurst was up in arms. ?I shall not unchain myself until those young girls get their pennies.? I imagine some enterprising girls disguised themselves as boys. After all, in those days a penny could get you quite a bit. But they?d never have got away with it. After getting their pennies they?d have curtseyed. The photographs have charming titles like, ?Amongst Young Bristonians,? and ?Snapped at Glasgow.? My favourite is ?It won?t explode, says the Chums man.? Indicating they also had problems with suicide bombers. All the boys in the pictures look cheerful, (apart, of course, from the one who thought his benefactor?s gift might be primed to detonate.) On the other hand, we know there were some pretty rough boys around in the major cities. So how many of these poor distributors were mugged? ?I?ll ?ave all them pennies, Mister ? along with your bleedin? wallet.? Needless to say, today this sort of publicity stunt would go down like a lead balloon. Just imagine standing on a street corner giving money to children.