Chatterbox was a dreadful children's magazine that was published from 1866 to 1955. It taught older kids all the virtues: class consciousness, xenophobia, and sexism among others. It's morbid as all get out, too: kids get menaced by runaway wagons, kidnapped by cliché gypsies, and learn to read tombstones. Give us a break.

'It didn't do us any harm,' I can hear the Colonel Blimps of yesteryear bleating. Oh, yeah? I have seen the history of the 20th Century, and beg to differ.

The woodcut above is based on a true story. Here's the text:

A Strange Family

A True Anecdote

A reader of Chatterbox, aged twelve, sends the following anecdote of his pets:

'My uncle gave me a shilling to buy two young rabbits, which I brought home and placed beside my sister's cat; she received them kindly, as if they were her own. The following morning I went down to the hutch, scarcely thinking that my rabbits would be alive¹: great was my surprise when I saw the cat sitting happily with the kitten and my rabbits². It proved very interesting to watch them play. Many people came to see them, as they were considered a curiosity³.'

I hope you enjoyed that one. Now back to the story about the Russian count's kid kidnapped by gypsies…

Dmitri Gheorgheni

11.01.21 Front Page

Back Issue Page