The 1928 Rag Rag magazine was produced by students to raise money for charitable causes around Manchester. This was the fourth edition of the Manchester Rag Rag. It cost sixpence per copy.
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.
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 and Parkes mechanics, Van Heusen collars, Thos. French and Son curtains, Gallahers Tobacco, John Heywood bookseller, the Ewbank carpet sweeper, the Manchester Ship Canal, Lawton’s tailors, Lookers Ltd., Vimto, Boots, Oldham and Son batteries, Amazon Overalls, C. Nicholls and Co printing, Delecta Chocolates and Pratt’s petrol.