[Ads-l] Mike Hunt

George Thompson george.thompson at NYU.EDU
Sun Jan 22 19:29:36 UTC 2023


I found this many years ago, in the indictment files of the New York County
District Attorney.
He was attempting to indict a publication called The Flash for naughtiness,
and one of the issues was included as evidence.
An illustration is captioned:

            A Gallery of Comicalities.  [An umbrella in the woods; a bonnet
and a hat and gloves on the grass near it; male and female feet, shod,
protrude, his toes downward, hers upwards; beyond the umbrella, a hunter,
looking astonished, with his dog.  Mike Hunt, sc.]

            Flash, Vol. 1, #4, Sunday Morning, July 10, 1842, p. 1, cols.
2-3

It accompanies a naughty story about a couple caught copulating in the
shrubbery at the Elysian Fields, in Hoboken, the great site for casual outdoor
recreation for folks from New York, before the Central Park was created.


I don't see "Mike Hunt" in either JL's Historical Dict., nor in JGreen's
Dictionary.  However, I believe it is a traditional naughty joke, playing
on shifting the juncture that naturally goes between "Mike" and "Hunt" to
the middle of "Mike".


GAT

-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

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