rrold did not
say much, but he supported his friend, you may be sure. They talked us
over very easily." They bought the editors' share for L200, which they
advanced on the security of the whole. Into the circumstances of the
subsequent squabbles between Landells and the firm it is not needful to
enter. He bitterly complained that he could obtain neither statements of
accounts nor satisfactory arrangement, while the firm withheld their
favourable consideration of the agreements his solicitors sent them to
sign. The negotiations proceeded wearily from April, 1842, to December
24th, with rising wrath on the part of the good-hearted, impatient
Northumbrian, who could neither understand nor brook the repeated
delays, and fairly boiled over with indignation, suspicion, and wrath.
In despair, so Landells recorded, that his lawyers could get no
satisfaction, and yet "not willing to put the whole thing into
Chancery," he blurted out that he should buy back Bradbury and Evans'
share or they acquire his. As cool business men they promptly asked his
price. He named L450, ultimately reducing it to L400, and further to
L350, on the understanding, he says, that he should continue to act as
engraver; and great were his anger and humiliation when he found after
the second week of the new _regime_ that the engraving was taken from
him. But it is only fair to say that in his lawyer's instructions there
is evidence that Bradbury and Evans persistently declined to give up
their freedom in the matter of the engraving. The transfer then took
place.[5] On December 23rd, 1842, the firm was already speaking with
some authority; the voice was the voice of the printers, but the tone
was the tone of proprietors. And that was the passing of _Punch_.
Earlier in the year Landells had made an effort to save the paper by
persuading those who worked for it to take shares. With a few he was
successful; others were less speculative, so the writer was informed by
the late H. G. Hine. "Landells," he said, "asked me to take a share in
the paper, but, not being a business man, I declined. When the paper
changed hands, Bradbury and Evans bought it for so small an increase on
the actual losses and debts, that each man, when the profits were
divided, received two-and-sixpence each." Not long after Landells ceased
his connection with _Punch_, Douglas Jerrold met Vizetelly, and
acquainted him with the turn of the tide. "_Punch_ is getting on all
right now," he said;