No one would have predicted the success of the Boy’s Own Paper. A magazine for boys published by the Religious Tract Society from 1879, it was intended as an antidote to the evil influence of the “Penny Dreadfuls” – the periodicals and cheap books that printed bloodthirsty tales of robbers, cannibals and demon barbers.

But BOP had a pretty robust personality itself. Its tone was set by editor George Andrew Hutchison, although because he was rather young, a stripling of 37 with a hint of the working class in his background, he was only called sub-editor. In a remark he made to one of the secretaries of the Society, he said the new magazine would only be a success if it “appealed to boys and not to their grandmothers”. So readers were introduced to a story called Nearly Eaten by James Cox R.N., about a professor on Haiti who was pursued by a horde of voodoo-worshipping cannibals – a follow-up to Cox’s previous story, Nearly Garotted.

The stories and articles in the early numbers of the Boy’s Own Paper are period pieces now, even though some of the best fiction, by writers such as Jules Verne, is sometimes read in book form today. But one regular feature of the magazine, which emerged without fanfare on page 160 of the first volume, was headed simply Answers to Correspondents, and over the first 20 years of its publication, it provided a panorama of all the things that puzzled boys (and occasionally girls) about life in the late Victorian world.

Sometimes answers were of such breathtaking callousness that it is difficult to see how the Religious Tract Society, dedicated as it was to Christian ideals, could be comfortable at their inclusion. The editor was reprimanded for allowing one of Dr Gordon Stables’s answers to exceed the boundaries of good taste. To a boy who wrote, probably with great difficulty and some courage, of his “bad habits”, Stables replied: “Coffins are cheap and boys like you are not of much use in the world.” For this, the RTS did record that a grave error of judgment had been committed – although in the highest interests of their correspondent.

But this treatment didn’t put off readers, and Answers to Correspondents published replies to 10,000 or so letters in the first decade of the paper’s life, covering all manner of themes from sport to pets to employment.

One unfamiliar feature of Answers to Correspondents is the fact that the original queries are not given, which in today’s world, makes the answers sometimes intriguing, but more often very funny. For example: “We admired your brevity, but not your clearness. What do you mean?”

These answers have been amassed in a new book, Your Case Is Hopeless, and they give a fascinating insight into the concerns, morality and humour of late-19th century Britain.

Manly sports for a boy

If a batsman is out, he is out, no matter how many people say so. But if the fieldsmen yell and shout “out” before the ball has reached him, he is decidedly not out, as such a proceeding is manifestly unfair.

It is not customary in England to fill footballs with gas, whatever it may be in Belgium. There is just a chance that the lifting power would be so very much improved that a kick-off would send the ball aloft, and leave it there like a balloon.

Expert skaters can cut their names on the ice just as you can write your name without taking your pen off the paper; and, as in your case, the performance is not always much of a success.

No boy should ride till fifteen; and then the machine ought to be proportioned to his weight. If not, he will suffer in after-life.