<p style='text-align: justify;'>Volume 5 of the University of Manchester Rag Rag. Cover features a stylised image of a black stick-figure in a blue headdress and skirt alongside a black snake emerging from a jack-in-the-box, both in front of a green and yellow sun with a face. This edition cost sixpence per copy, with money raised donated to charitable causes around Manchester.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'> Features include ‘Who Killed the Butler’, a surrealist parody of detective stories and ‘The sad story of why a Big Business Merger came to Nought’, a ballad satirising the profits of Ford and Woolworths. ‘A National Curse’ parodies Temperance campaigns by calling for a ban on soap. Other articles poke fun at aristocrats, gossip magazines and patriotic imperialists. There are also jokes around Manchester’s unreliable public transport, congested traffic, wet weather and excessive civic pride. Some cartoons show racial stereotypes.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'> This volume also contains comedic advertisements for Exide batteries, the Marconiphone, Lewis’s department store, the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Ferranti, Manchester Corporation Tramways, King Lud Tobacco, Atora beef suet, Saxon Jefferis cars, Small & Parkes mechanics, Van Heusen collars, Thos. French & Son curtains, Gallahers Tobacco, John Heywood bookseller, the Ewbank carpet sweeper, the Manchester Ship Canal, Lawton’s tailors, Lookers Ltd., Vimto, Boots, Oldham & Son batteries, Amazon Overalls, C. Nicholls & Co printing, Delecta Chocolates and Pratt’s petrol. </p>
