COMPETITION No. 1

Observer, Volume 1, Issue 4, 9 October 1880, Page 31

COMPETITION No. 1

The result of this competition has scarcely equalled my expectations. Out of full 3200 persons who took copies of the first issue only sixty-four have sent in riddles. Some of them, as you will see from the following bouquet of specimens, are fairly good ; others simply execrable. Mayor Peacock's name has been used again and again by competitors ; and so has Councillor Offer's. Most of the reflections on the worthy councillor are, it will be noted, the reverse of complimentary. No one seems to have thought of a good political riddle; in fact there is a striking poverty of invention shown throughout. The difficulty of arriving at a decision has been considerable, but after going carefully into the merits of the various efforts, I have come to the conclusion that "Poultice," the talented author of No. 4, deserves the guinea. His conundrum is vulgar — decidedly vulgar — but there is plenty of "humour" in it, and those to whom I have shown the riddles are (with two exceptions) unanimous in assigning it the prize. Next best comes No. 32. As a

plain straightforward conundrum many may think this one better even than No. 4, but it is not so funny. Both No. 5 and No. 10 have been published before, otherwise they are very neat, and would have been well in the running. As a sample of word twisting, No. 1 is good, and so are No's. 2 and 11. None of the others call for remark.