A double siding cutting from the periodical Truth: Christmas Number, entitled The National Punch and Judy Show, published on 25th December 1882. Both sides of the cutting feature illustrations which are intended to 'reproduce a series of the incidents which figured in the scenes profuse' of a Punch and Judy Show which it declares was prepared at the wish of Mr. Gladstone.

The scenes depicted feature caricatures of various contemporary political figures in the role of Punch, including Gladstone himself. It uses the scenes to comment on issues such as the demand for Irish Home Rule, the fight for Civic Reform, the consequences of the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, and the negotiations between the Russian Count Schouvaloff and the Marquis of Salisbury (then Conservative leader in the House of Lords and previously Foreign Secretary). Amongst the political figures it lampoons are William Gladstone (1809-1898), the Marquis of Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, (1830 -1903) and Sir Stafford H. Northcote (1818 -1887).

Each illustration is also accompanied by a short verse referring to the events depicted, and written in a form which parodies the style of operetta popularised by Gilbert and Sullivan. The lyrics bear a particular resemblance to the song sung by the poets Bunthorne and Grosvenor in their operetta Patience or Bunthorne's Bride, which was first performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23rd April 1881.

The cutting is part of the George Speaight Punch & Judy Collection.