Autres Temps Autres Moeurs

Autres Temps Autres Moeurs [Other times other customs]. Source: Fun 57-58 (14 November 1893): 500. Click on image to enlarge it.

Pater and mater, remembering the glorious pantomimes of their own infancy, take the olive branches to see a modern one. Somehow it doesn’t seem quite the same thing; they almost wish they hadn’t come, and they quite wish they hadn’t brought the children.

In this performance Victorian pantomime, which emphasized fairyland and the fantastic, seems to have been replaced by scantily clothed Parisian-style can can and chorus girls. Another cartoon in Fun suggests the early one still thrived. Perhaps the careless parents just took the children to the wrong show at Christmas time.

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Last modified 1 February 2016