1872 story

“.. The Pilgrims held a conversation one day, at a little breakfast in my library, on the unflagging renown of Punch, of the streets, of Punch the unconquerable vagabond! Nobody could remember an occasion when Mr. Punch's performance had fallen flat. 
…In our enthusiasm we agreed to bring him, drum and pipes and all, into the club smoking-room one evening,
and have him all to ourselves, over our cigars. The night came: the room was crowded with a great company
of men who knew how to laugh, and who had made up their minds to have a merry time of it. The show was
as good as I have ever seen in the streets. Swift action of the puppets; a capital Toby, with a face of admirably profound melancholy; such a performer on the pipes, such a drum! But, it was a dead failure: the very dreariest night I can remember. We couldn't, and we tried hard, get up the smallest laugh." 

‘A pilgrimage’, by Gustave Dore and Blanchard Jerrold, 1872 CHAPTER XX  LONDON AT PLAY

“.. An artful and enterprising speculator, judging that amongst the kindliest recollections of the old country,
in the hearts of those who had emigrated therefrom, Punch and Judy would occupy no mean position, had induced all the Punch men that were procurable to pack up their theatres and their drums and Pandean pipes… sign for a twelvemonth's engagement to perform in the streets of the United States of America…”

‘Mysteries of Modern London, by One of the Crowd’ by James Greenwood, [1883] - Street Entertainments