» .0° "^ J w «£** >; ^ °^ -jj ,^ ■•'••• ;•: %/ .V ... *^_ V V % t* ^P^h °M^ : ! ^^P : vl •r V* O A** ^ '.SIS* ** "^ ° v-0 P • C J^** o >° A °^ ,0 ,0 *' A ,.;t- .0" ,0' : o, " . . s - v ^°* ) THE HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IN CARICATURE WMATT DT 0, WHAT D@ QT ? 1861 THE HISTORY OF THE Nineteenth Century In Caricature BY ARTHUR BARTLETT MAURICE AND FREDERIC TABER COOPER PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1904 ^ B LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received APR 22^1904 Copyright Entry Ct&A, . 1.% . / <\ ff k- CLASS a- XXc. No. K / M COPY B I K. Copyright 1903, 1904 By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY Published April, 1904 To HARRY THURSTON PECK / CONTENTS PART I. THE NAPOLEONIC ERA I. The Beginning of Political Caricature . . i II. Hogarth and his Times 12 III. James Gillray . . . . . . .19 IV. Bonaparte as First Consul .... 28 V. The Emperor at his Apogee . . . .35 VI. Napoleon's Waning Power .... 44 PART II. FROM WATERLOO THROUGH THE CRIMEAN WAR VII. After the Downfall 57 VIII. The " Poire " 65 IX. The Baiting of Louis-Phillipe .... 73 X. Mayeux and Robert Macaire .... 90 XL From Cruikshank to Leech .... 97 XII. The Beginning of Punch ..... 101 XIII. Retrospective in XIV. '48 and the Coup d'Etat 119 XV. The Struggle in the Crimea .... 128 PART III. THE CIVIL AND FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WARS XVI. The Mexican War and Slavery . . .143 XVII. Neglected Opportunities 159 XVIII. The South Secedes 166 XIX. The Four Years' Struggle . . . .175 XX. Nations and Men in Caricature . . .188 XXL The Outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War . 197 XXII. The DebAcle 206 Vlll CONTENTS CHAPTER PART IV. THE END OF THE CENTURY XXIII. The Evolution of American Caricature XXIV. The Third French Republic XXV. General European Affairs XXVI. Thomas Nast XXVII. The American Political Campaigns of 1880 and 1884 ..... XXVIII. The Influence of Journalism XXIX. Years of Turbulence XXX. American Parties and Platforms . XXXI. The Spanish-American War . XXXII. The Boer War and the Dreyfus Case XXXIII. The Men of To-day 231 236 245 2.55 269 278 289 309 330 342 355 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS What It Is and What Is It? French Invasion of England Nelson at the Battle of the Nile (Gillray) Bonaparte after Landing (Gillray) John Bull Taking a Luncheon (Gillray) French Consular Triumvirate (Gillray) Capture of the Danish Ships (Gillray) The Broad-Bottom Administration (Gillray) Pacific Overtures (Gillray) The Great Coronation Procession (Gillray) Napoleon and Pitt (Gillray) Armed Heroes (Gillray) The Handwriting on the Wall (Gillray) The Double-Faced Napoleon (German cartoon) The Two Kings of Terror (Rowlandson) The King of Brobdingnag and Gulliver (Gillray) Napoleon's Burden (German cartoon) The French Gingerbread Baker (Gillray) The Devil and Napoleon (French cartoon) The Consultation (French cartoon) The Corsican Top in Full Flight Napoleon in the Valley of the Shadow of Death (G The Spider's Web (Volk) . The Partition of the Map Napoleon's Plight (French cartoon) The Signature of Abdication (Cruikshank) The Allies' Oven (French cartoon) The New Robinson Crusoe (German cartoon Napoleon Caged (French cartoon) Restitution ..... Adjusting the Balance John Bull's New Batch of Ships (Charles) Russia as Mediator (Charles) llray) PAGE Frontispiece 3 5 6 8 ii 16 19 21 23 25 27 29 3i 33 36 38 39 4i 45 47 48 49 50 52 54 55 56 58 60 62 63 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Cossack Hke (Charles) John Bull and the Alexandrians (Charles) John Bull's Troubles (Charles) The Order of the Extinguishers (French cartoon) Proudhon Digging the Grave Le Poire (Philipon) The Pious Monarch The Great Nut-Cracker Enfonce Lafayette (Daumier The Ship of State in Peril The Pit of Taxation (Grandville) The Question of Divorce (Daumier) The Resuscitation (Grandville) Louis Philippe as Bluebeard (Grandville) Barbarism and Cholera Invading The Raid . . Mayeux (Travies) Robert Macaire (Daumier) Extinguished ! Louis Philippe as Cain Laughing John — Crying John The Wellington Boot The Land of Liberty England's Admonition (Leech) The Napoleon of Peace The Sea-Serpent of 1848 Europe in 1830 .... Honore Daumier (Benjamin) The Evolution of John Bull Joseph Prudhomme (Daumier) The Only Authorised Lamps (Vernier) Italian Cartoon of '48 Napoleon le Petit (Vernier) The New Siamese Twins ■ . Louis Napoleon and Madame France The Proclamation (Gill) Split Crow in the Crimea Bursting of the Russian Bubble LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS General Fevrier Turned Traitor (Leech) Rochefort and His Lantern Brothers in Arms An American Cartoon on the Crimean War Theatrical Programme The British Lion's Vengeance (Tenniel) The French Porcupine (Leech) Bank-Oh's Ghost, 1837 • Balaam and Balaam's Ass New Map of the United States The Steeplechase for 1844 Uncle Sam's Taylorifics The Mexican Commander Defense of the California Bank The Presidential Foot Race . Presidential Campaign of '56 No Higher Law . The Fugitive Slave Law The Great Disunion Serpent Rough and Ready Locomotive Against the Field Sauce for Goose and Gander Peace (Nast) Virginia Pausing Civil War Envelopes Long Abe The Promissory Note The Great Tight Rope Feat At the Throttle .... The Expert Bartender The Southern Confederacy a Fact The Brighter Prospect "Why Don't you Take It?" The Old Bull Dog on the Right Track Little Mac in his Great Act The Grave of the Union The Abolition Catastrophe . The Blockade .... Miscegenation . . . . The Confederacy in Petticoats XI PAGE 131 133 134 136 i38 139 141 144 144 145 147 150 151 1.53 153 154 155 157 158 160 162 164 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 i74 175 176 178 180 181 182 183 184 Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Uncle Sam': Menagerie Protecting Free Ballot The Nation at Lincoln's Bier (Tenniel) Figures from a Triumph The Diagnosis (Cham) The Egerean Nymph (Daumier) Paul and Virginia (Gill) The First Conscript of France (Gill) The Situation (Gill) Louis Blanc (Gill) Rival Arbiters (Tenniel) The Man Who Laughs (Gill) . The Man Who Thinks (Gill) . "To Be or Not to Be" (Gill) . Achilles in Retreat (Gill) The President of Rhodes (Daumier) A Tempest in a Glass of Water (Gill) A Duel to the Death (Tenniel) September 4th, 1870 Her Baptism of Fire (Tenniel) Andre Gill .... The Marquis de Gallifet (Willette) The History of a Reign (Daumier) " This has Killed That " (Daumier) The Mousetrap and its Victims (Daumier) Prussia Annexes Alsace (Cham) Britannia's Sympathy (Cham) Adieu (Cham) .... Souvenirs and Regrets (Aranda) The Napoleon Mountebanks (Hadol) Prussia Introducing the New Assembly (Daumier) " Let us Eat the Prussian" (Gill) Design for a New Handbell (Daumier) Germany's Farewell Bismarck the First Trochu — 1870 .... Marshal Bazaine (Faustin) Rochefort .... The German Emperor Enters Paris (Regamey) LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Xlll Caran D'Ache Gulliver Crispi Changing the Map (Gill) Poor France! (Daumier) The Warning (Daumier) The New Year (Daumier) The Root of all Evil The Napoleonic Drama The French Political Situation (Regamey) New Crowns for Old Tightening the Grip Aeolus " L'Etat, C'est Moi " . The Hidden Hand The Irish Frankenstein The Daring Duckling . Settling the Alabama Claims Gordon Waiting at Khartoum The Gratz Brown Tag to Greeley's Coat (Nast) Thomas Nast Labour Cap and Dinner Pail (Nast) The Rag Baby (Nast) The Inflation Donkey (Nast) The Brains of Tammany (Nast) A Popular Verdict The Tattooed Columbia (Keppler) Splitting the Party The Headless Candidates On the Down Grade Forbidding the Banns (Keppler) The Wake (Keppler) A Common Sorrow Why They Dislike Him The First Tattooed Man (Gillam) A German Idea of Irish Home Rule The New National Sexton . Horatius Cleveland Bernard Gillam .... Joseph Keppler .... PAGE 232 233 234 237 238 239 240 241 243 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 256 257 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 270 272 273 274 275 279 280 281 282 283 XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Th • John Bull Octopus The Hand of Anarchy The Tr.pl e Alliance A Present-Day Lesson Gordon in Khartoum The Spurious Parnell Letters Dropping the Pilot (Tenniel) L'Enfant Terrible . . . William Bluebeard Chinese Native Cartoon Japan in Corea .... Business at the Deathbed The Start for the China Cup End of the Chinese-Japanese War The Chinese Exclusion Act The Great Republican Circus (Opper) To the Rescue .... A Pilgrim's Progress General Boulanger The Hague Peace Conference A Fixture ..... Group of Modern French Caricaturists The Anglo-French War Barometer Rip Van Winkle Awakes They're Off .... Where am I at? (Gillam) The Political Columbus (Gillam) Cleveland's Map of the United States (Gillam) Return of the Southern Flags (Gillam) The Champion Masher (Gillam) The Harrison Platform (Keppler) The Chilian Affair A Political Tarn O'Shanter (Gillam) Don Quixote Bryan and the Windmill (Victor Gillam) Outing of the Anarchists To the Death .... The Great Weyler Ape We are the People Be Careful! It's Loaded (Victor Gillam) LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Safety Valve ..... The Latest War Bulletin (Hamilton) . Spanish Cartoons of the Spanish-American War The Spanish Brute (Hamilton) . Spanish Cartoons of the Spanish-American War The Rhodes Colossus (Sambourne) The Situation in South Africa (Gillam) Bloody Cartography Lady Macbeth The Flying Dutchman Oom Paul's Favorite Pastime Up against the Breastworks . The Napoleon of South Africa Fire! .... The Last Phase of the Dreyfus Cas Toward Freedom The French General's Staff . Between Scylla and Charybdis Devil's Island C. G. Bush Willie and His Papa (Opper) Homer Davenport Davenport's Conception of the Trusts I'AGE 333 334 335 337 339 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 350 351 352 353 354 356 357 359 361 HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IN CARICATURE PART I THE NAPOLEONIC ERA CHAPTER I THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL CARICATURE WHILE the impulse to satirize public men in picture is probably as old as satiric verse, if not older, the political cartoon, as an effective agent in molding public opinion, is essentially a product of modern conditions and methods. As with the campaign song, its success depends upon its timeliness, upon the ability to seize upon a critical moment, a burning question of the hour, and anticipate the outcome while public excitement is still at a white heat. But unlike satiric verse, it is dependent upon ink and paper. It cannot be transmitted orally. The doggerel verses of the Roman legions passed from camp to camp with the mysterious swiftness of an epidemic, and found their way even into the sober history of Suetonius. The topical songs and parodies of the Middle Ages migrated from town to town with the strolling minstrels, as readily as did the cycles of heroic poetry. But with caricature the case was very different. It may be that the man of the Stone Age, whom Mr. Opper has lately utilized so cleverly in a series of carica- 2 CENTURY IN CARICATURE tures, was the first to draw rude and distorted likenesses of some unpopular chieftain, just as the Roman soldier of 79 A. d. scratched on the wall of his barracks in Pompeii an unflattering portrait of some martinet centurion which the ashes of Vesuvius have preserved until to-day. It is certain that the Greeks and Romans appreciated the power of ridi- cule latent in satiric pictures; but until the era of the printing press, the caricaturist was as one crying in a wilderness. And it is only with the modern co-operation of printing and pho- tography that caricature has come into its full inheritance. The best and most telling cartoons are those which do not merely reflect current public opinion, but guide it. In look- ing back over a century of caricature, we are apt to overlook this distinction. A cartoon which cleverly illustrates some important historical event, and throws light upon the con- temporary attitude of the public, is equally interesting to-day, whether it anticipated the event or was published a month afterward. But in order to influence public opinion, carica- ture must contain a certain element of prophecy. It must suggest a danger or point an interrogation. As an example, we may compare two famous cartoons by the English artist Gillray, " A Connoisseur Examining a Cooper " and the " King of Brobdingnag and Gulliver." In the latter, George III., in the guise of a giant, is curiously examining through his magnifying glass a Lilliputian Napoleon. There is no element of prophecy about the cartoon. It simply reflects the contemptuous attitude of the time toward Napoleon, and underestimates the danger. The other cartoon, which ap- peared several years earlier, shows the King anxiously ex- amining the features of Cooper's well-known miniature of Cromwell, the great overthrower of kings. Public sentiment at that time suggested the imminence of another revolution, 4 CENTURY IN CARICATURE and the cartoon suggests a momentous question: "Will the fate of Charles I. be repeated? " In the light of history, the Gullivc- cartoon is to-day undoubtedly the more interesting, but at he time of its appearance it could not have produced •pulling approaching the sensation of that of " a Connois- seur." The necessity of getting a caricature swiftly before the pub- lic has always been felt, and has given rise to some curious devices and makeshifts. In the example which we have noted as having come down from Roman times, a patriotic citizen of Pompeii could find no better medium for giving his car- toon of an important local event to the world than by scratch- ing it upon the wall of his dwelling-house after the fashion of the modern advertisement. There was a time in the seven- teenth century when packs of political playing-cards enjoyed an extended vogue. The fashion of printing cartoons upon ladies' fans and other articles of similarly intimate character was a transitory fad in England a century ago. Mr. Acker- mann, a famous printer of his generation, and publisher of the greater part of Rowlandson's cartoons, adopted as an expedient for spreading political news a small balloon with an attached mechanism, which, when liberated, would drop news bulletins at intervals as it passed over field and village. In this country many people of the older generation will still remem- ber the widespread popularity of the patriotic caricature-en- velopes that were circulated during the Civil War. To-day we are so used to the daily newspaper cartoon that we do not stop to think how seriously handicapped the cartoonists of a century ago found themselves. The more important cartoons of Gillray and Rowlandson appeared either in monthly peri- odicals, such as the Westminster Magazine and the Oxford Magazine, or in separate sheets that sold at the prohibitive 6 CENTURY IN CARICATURE price of several shillings. In times of great public excite- ment, as during the later years of the Napoleonic wars, such cartoons were bought up greedily, the City vying with the aristocratic West End in their patriotic demand for them. But such times were exceptional, and the older caricaturists were obliged to let pass many interesting crises because the situations would have become already stale before the day Tha, i., m j« mRneaticn far Ik. UrJu .V ' u/' /W^i -4;,.. p w,., ,l/,„l JUixt amimn . Lorl'K.MCul^Wt u Ahvrjfi_ lfn„.r.t ,'/;., l„ : nd,Mj m, H, Unlijh C.jufl ' ' Buonaparte .flours, after Landuiu) of publication of the monthly magazines came round. With the advent of the illustrated weeklies the situation was iml proved, but it is only in recent times that the ideal condition! has been reached, when the cabled news of yesterday is! interpreted in the cartoon of to-day. There is another and less specific reason why caricature had to await the advent of printing and the wider dissem- ination of knowledge which resulted. The successful political CENTURY IN CARICATURE 7 cartoon presupposes a certain average degree of intelligence in a nation, an awakened civic conscience, a sense of responsi- bility for the nation's welfare. The cleverest cartoonist would waste his time appealing to a nation of feudal vassals; he could not expect to influence a people to whom the ballot box was closed. Caricature flourishes best in an atmosphere of democracy; there is an eternal incompatibility between its audacious irreverence and the doctrine of the divine right of kings. And yet the best type of caricature should not require a high degree of intelligence. Many clever cartoonists over- reach themselves by an excess of cleverness, appealing at best to a limited audience. Of this type are the cartoons whose point lies in parodying some famous painting or a masterpiece of literature, which, as a result, necessarily remains caviare to the general. There is a type of portrait caricature so cul- tured and subtle that it often produces likenesses truer to the man we know in real life than a photograph would be. A good example of this type is the familiar work of William Nicholson, whose portrait of the late Queen of England is said to have been recognized by her as one of the most char- acteristic pictures she had ever had taken. What appeals to the public, however, is a coarser type, a gross exaggeration of prominent features, a willful distortion, resulting in ridicule or glorification. Oftentimes the caricature degenerates into a mere symbol. We have outgrown the puerility of the pictorial pun which flourished in England at the close of the \ seventeenth century, when cartoonists of Gillray's rank were content to represent Lord Bute as a pair of boots, Lord North as Boreas, the north wind, and the elder Fox with the head and tail of the animal suggested by his name. Yet personi- fication of one kind and another, and notably the personifica- CENTURY IN CARICATURE 9 tion of the nations in the shape of John Bull and Uncle Sam and the Russian Bear, forms the very alphabet of political caricature of the present day. Some of the most memo- rable series that have ever appeared were founded upon a chance resemblance of the subject of them to some natural object. Notable instances are Daumier's famous series of Louis Philippe represented as a pear, and Nast's equally clever, but more local, caricatures of Tweed as a money-bag. It would be interesting, if the material were accessible, to trace the development of the different personifications of England, France, and Russia, and the rest, from their first appearance in caricature, but unfortu- nately their earlier development cannot be fully traced. The underlying idea of representing the different nations as individuals, and depicting the great international crises in a series of allegories or parables or animal stories — a sort of pictorial ^Esop's fables — dates back to the very beginning of caricature. In one of the earliest cartoons that have been preserved, England, France, and a number of minor princi- palities which have since disappeared from the map of Europe, are represented as playing a game of cards with some disputed island possessions as the stakes. In this case the several nations are indicated merely by heraldic emblems. The conception of John Bull was not to be evolved until a couple of centuries later. This cartoon, like the others of that time, originated in France under Louis XII. The fur- ther development of the art was decisively checked under the despotic reign of Louis XIV., and the few caricaturists of that time who had the courage to use their pencil against the king were driven to the expedient of publishing their works in Holland. An impressive illustration of the advantage which the io CENTURY IN CARICATURE satirical poet has over the cartoonist lies in the fact that some of the cleverest political satire ever written, as well as the best examples of the application of the animal fable to politics, were produced in France at this very time in the fables of La Fontaine. th, ahwjr, thu Iriinup'J «f CAMEACJilU-o UBBV.V -. air SEEP SKIKKS ."-^' Ui/av.MVUIT* • *M» (rffll/W i»«- /#j> - l,i?jtJ^h,^.i"KJ- miff iuPoJ, ah M» Consb'tutiemai-PupunlEbtei! of If* MjcSajn -mlLlktc* Grounl BY GILLRAY. CHAPTER II HOGARTH AND HIS TIMES FROM Holland caricature migrated to Great Britain in the closing years of the seventeenth cen- tury — a natural result of the attention which Dutch cartoonists had bestowed upon the revolution of 1688 — and there it found a fertile and congenial soil. The English had not had time to forget that they had once put the divine right of kings to the test of the executioner's block, and what little reverence still survived was not likely to afford protection for a race of imported monarchs. Moreover, as it happened, the development of English caricature was des- tined to be guided by the giant genius of two men, Hogarth and Gillray; and however far apart these two men were in their moral and artistic standards, they had one thing in common, a perennial scorn for the House of Hanover. Hogarth's contemptuous satire of George II. was more than echoed in Gillray's merciless attacks upon George III. The well-known cartoons of " Farmer George," and " George the Button-Maker," were but two of the countless ways in which he avenged himself upon the dull-witted king who had once acknowledged that he could not see the point of Gillray's caricatures. Although Hogarth antedates the period covered by the present articles by fully half a century, he is much too com- manding a figure in the history of comic art to be summarily dismissed. The year 1720 marks the era of the so-called " bubble mania," the era of unprecedented inflation, of the CENTURY IN CARICATURE 13 South Sea Company in London, and the equally notorious Mississippi schemes of John Law in France. Popular excite- ment found vent in a veritable deluge of cartoons, many of which originated in Amsterdam and were reprinted in Lon- don, often with the addition of explanatory satiric verses in English. In one, Fortune is represented riding in a car driven by Folly, and drawn by personifications of the different com- panies responsible for the disastrous epidemic of speculation : the Mississippi, limping along on a wooden leg; the South Sea, with its foot in splints, etc. In another, we have an imaginary map of the Southern seas, representing " the very famous island of Madhead, situated in Share Sea, and inhabited by all kinds of people, to which is given the general name of Shareholders." John Law came in for a major share of the caricaturist's attention. In one picture he is represented as assisting Atlas to bear up immense globes of wind; in another, he is a "wind-monopolist," declaring, " The wind is my treasure, cushion, and foundation. Master of the wind, I am master of life, and my wind monopoly becomes straightway the object of idolatry." The windy character of the share-business is the dominant note in the cartoons of the period. Bubbles, windmills, flying kites, play a prominent part in the detail with which the background of the typical Dutch caricature was always crowded. These cartoons, displayed conspicuously in London shop windows, were not only seen by ITogarth, but influenced him vitally. His earliest known essay in political caricature is an adapta- tion of one of these Dutch prints, representing the wheel of Fortune, bearing the luckless and infatuated speculators high aloft. His latest work still shows the influence of Holland in the endless wealth of minute detail, the painstak- ing elaboration of his backgrounds, in which the most patient CENTURY IN CARICATURE 15 examination is ever finding something new. With Hogarth, the overcharged method of the Dutch school became a medium for irrepressible genius. At the hands of his fol- lowers and imitators, it became a source of obscurity and confusion. While Hogarth is rightly recognized as the father of English caricature, it must be remembered that his best work was done on the social rather than on the political side. Even his most famous political series, that of " The Elections," is broadly generalized. It is not in any sense campaign litera- ture, but an exposition of contemporary manners. And this was always Hogarth's aim. He was by instinct a realist, en- dowed with a keen sense of humor — a quality in which many a modern realist is deficient. He satirized life as he saw it, the good and the bad together, with a frankness which at times was somewhat brutal, like the frankness of Fielding and of Smollett — the frankness of the age they lived in. It was essentially an outspoken age, robust and rather gross ; a red- blooded age, nurtured on English beef and beer; a jovial age that shook its sides over many a broad jest, and saw no shame in open allusion to the obvious and elemental facts of physical life. Judged by the standards of his day, there is little offense in Hogarth's work; even when measured by our own, he is not deliberately licentious. On the contrary, he set an example of moderation which his successors would have done well to imitate. Tie realized, as the later carica- turists of his century did not, that the great strength of pic- torial satire lies in ridicule rather than in invective; that the ubtlest irony often lies in a close adherence to truth, where riotous and unrestrained exaggeration defeats its own end. Just as in the case of " Joseph Andrews," Fielding's creative instinct got the upper hand of the parodist, so in much of Q ^ CENTURY IN CARICATURE 17 Hogarth's work one feels that the caricaturist is forced to yield place to the realistic artist, the student of human life, carried away by the interest of the story he has to tell. His chief gift to caricature is his unprecedented development of the narrative quality in pictorial art. He pointed a road along which his imitators could follow him only at a distance. With the second half of the eighteenth century there began an era of great license in the political press, an era of bitter vituperation and vile personal abuse. Hogarth was one of the chief sufferers. After holding aloof from partisan poli- tics for nearly half a century, he published, in 1762, his well-known cartoon attacking the ex-minister, Pitt. All Europe is represented in flames, which are spreading to Great Britain in spite of the efforts of Lord Bute, aided by his Highlanders, to extinguish them. Pitt is blowing upon the flames, which are being fed by the Duke of Newcastle from a barrow full of Monitors and North Britons, two scurrilous papers of the day. The bitterness with which Hogarth was attacked in retaliation and the persistence of his persecutors resulted, as was generally believed at the time, in a broken heart and his death in 1764. An amazing increase in the number of caricatures followed the entry of Lord Bute's ministry into power. They were distinguished chiefly by their poor execution and gross inde- cency. As early as 1762, the Gentleman's Magazine, itself none too immaculate, complains that " Many of the repre- sentations that have lately appeared in the shops are not only Reproachful to the government, but offensive to common- sense; they discover a tendency to inflame, without a spark of fire to light their own combustion." The state of society in England was at this time notoriously immoral and licen- tious. It was a period of hard living and hard drinking. i8 CENTURY IN CARICATURE The well-known habits of such public figures as Sheridan and Fox are eminent examples. The spirit of gambling had become a mania, and women had caught the contagion as well as men. Nowhere was the profligacy of the times more clearly shown than in the looseness of public social functions, such as the notorious masquerade balls, which a contemporary journal, the Westminster Magazine, seriously decried as " subversive of virtue and every noble and domestic point of honor." The low standards of morals and want of delicacy are revealed in the extravagance of women's dress, the loose- ness of their speech. It was an age when women of rank, such as Lady Buckingham and Lady Archer, were publicly threat- ened by an eminent judge with exposure on the pillory for having systematically enticed young men and robbed them at j their faro tables, and afterward found themselves exposed in the pillory of popular opinion in scurrilous cartoons from shop windows all over London. CHAPTER III JAMES GILLRAY i T a time when cheap abuse took the place of / ^ technical skill, and vulgarity passed for wit, a / % man of unlimited audacity, who was also a con- summate master of his pencil, easily took precedence. Such a man was James Gillray, unquestionably the leading cartoon- ist of the reign of George III. Yet of the many who are| to-day familiar with the name of Gillray and the important part he played in influencing public opinion during the 1 struggle with Napoleon, very few have an understanding of the dominant qualities of his work. A large part of it, and probably the most representative part, is characterized by a foulness and an obscenity which the present generation cannot countenance. There is a whole series of cartoons bearing his name which it would not only be absolutely out of the ques- tion to reproduce, but the very nature of which can be indi- cated only in the most guarded manner. Imagine the works of Rabelais shamelessly illustrated by a master hand! Try! to conceive of the nature of the pictures which Panurge chalked up on the walls of old Paris. It was not merely the fault of the times, as in the case of Hogarth. Public taste was sufficiently depraved already; but Gillray deliberately prosti-' tuted his genius to the level of a procurer, to debauch it further. From first to last his drawings impress one as emanating from a mind not only unclean, but unbalanced as; well — a mind over which there hung, even at the beginning, the furtive shadow of that madness which at last overtook 22 CENTURY IN CARICATURE and blighted him. There is but one of the hallmarks of great caricature in the work of Gillray, and that is the lasting impression which they make. They refuse to be forgotten; they remain imprinted on the brain, like the obsession of a nightmare. While in one sense they stand as a pitiless indictment of the generation that tolerated them, they are not a reflection of the life that Gillray saw, except in the sense that their physical deformity symbolizes the moral foulness of the age. Grace and charm and physical beauty, which Hogarth could use effectively, are unknown quantities to Gillray. There is an element of monstrosity about all his figures, distorted and repellent. Foul, bloated faces; twisted, swollen limbs; unshapely figures whose protuberant flesh; suggests a tumefied and fungoid growth — such is the brood] begotten by Gillray's pencil, like the malignant spawn of some forgotten circle of the lower inferno. It would be idle to dispute the far-reaching power of Gillray's genius, perverted though it was. Throughout the; Napoleonic wars, caricature and the name of Gillray are con- vertible terms; for, even after he was forced to lay down his pencil, his brilliant contemporaries and successors, Rowland- son and Cruikshank, found themselves unable to throw of] the fetters of his influence. No history of Napoleon is quit(j complete which fails to recognize Gillray as a potent factor iij crystallizing public opinion in England. His long series o cartoons aimed at " little Boney " are the culminating worl of his life. Their power lay, not in intellectual subtlety o brilliant scintillation of wit, but in the bitterness of theij invective, the appeal they make to elemental passions. The J spoke a language which the roughest of London mobs couh understand — the language of the gutter. They were, man of them, masterpieces of pictorial Billingsgate. 1 24 CENTURY IN CARICATURE There is rancor, there is venom, there is the inevitable inheritance of the warfare of centuries, in these caricatures of Gillray, but above all there is fear — fear of Napoleon, of his genius, of his star. It has been very easy for Englishmen of later days to say that the French never could have crossed the Channel, that there was never any reason for disquiet; it was another matter in the days when troops were actually massing by thousands on the hills behind Boulogne. You can find this fear voiced everywhere in Gillray, in the discord- ance between the drawings and the text. John Bull is the ox, Bonaparte the contemptible frog; but it is usually the ox who is bellowing out defiance, daring the other to " come on," flinging down insult at the diminutive foe. " Let 'em come, damme! " shouts the bold Briton in the pictures of the time. " Damme! where are the French bugaboos? Single-handed I'll beat forty of 'em, damme ! " Every means was used to rouse the spirit of the English nation, and to stimulate hatred of the French and their leader. In one picture, Boney and his family are in rags, and are gnawing raw bones in a rude Corsican hut; in another we find him with a hookah and tur- ban, having adopted the Mahometan religion; in a third we see him murdering the sick at Joppa. In the caricatures of Gillray, Napoleon is always a monster, a fiend in human shape, craven and murderous; but when dealing with the question of this fiend's power for evil, Gillray made no attempt at consistency. This ogre, who through one series of pictures was represented as kicked about from boot to boot, kicked by the Spaniards, the Turks, the Austrians, the Prussians, the Russians, in another is depicted as being very dangerous indeed. A curious example of this inconsistency will be found in placing side by side the two cartoons consid- ered by many to be Gillray's best: " The King of Brobding- en W ° J\ o $ 26 CENTURY IN CARICATURE nag and Gulliver," already referred to, and " Tiddy-Doll, the great French gingerbread Maker, Drawing out a new Batch of Kings." The " pernicious, little, odious reptile " whom George the Third is holding so contemptuously in the hollow of his hand, in the first caricature, is in the second concededly of European importance. CHAPTER IV BONAPARTE AS FIRST CONSUL FOR the first decade of the nineteenth century there was but one important source of caricature, and one all-important subject — England and Bona- parte. America at this time counted for little in international politics. The revolutionary period closed definitely with the death of Washington, the one figure in our national politics who stood for something definite in the eyes of Europe. Our incipient naval war with France, which for a moment threat- ened to assign us a part in the general struggle of the Powers, was amicably concluded before the close of the eighteenth century. Throughout the Jeffersonian period, national and local satire and burlesque flourished, atoning in quantity for what it lacked in wit and artistic skill. Mr. Parton, in his " Caricature and Other Comic Art," finds but one cartoon which he thinks it worth while to cite — Jefferson kneeling be- fore a pillar labeled " Altar of Gallic Despotism," upon which are Paine's " Age of Reason," and the works of Rous- seau, Voltaire, and Helvetius, with the demon of the French Revolution crouching behind it, and the American Eagle soaring to the sky bearing away the Constitution and the in- dependence of the United States, and he adds : " Pictures of that nature, of great size, crowded with objects, emblems, and sentences — an elaborate blending of burlesque, allegory, and enigma — were so much valued by that generation that some of them were engraved upon copper." France, on the contrary, the central stage of the great 28 CENTURY IN CARICATURE 29 drama of nations, might at this time have produced a school of caricaturists worthy of their opportunity — a school that would have offset with its Gallic wit the heavier school of British invective, and might have furnished Napoleon with a strong weapon against his most persistent enemies, had he not, with questionable wisdom, sternly repressed pictorial satire of a political nature. As the century opens, the drama " THE DOUBLE-FACED NAPOLEON. Frotn the collection of John Leonard Dudley, Jr. of the ensuing fourteen years becomes clearly denned; the prologue has been played; Napoleon's ambition in the East has-been checked, first by the Battle of the Nile, and then definitely at Aboukir. Henceforth he is to limit his schemes of conquest to Europe, and John Bull is the only national figure who seems likely to attempt to check him. The Battle of the Nile was commemorated by Gillray, who depicted 30 CENTURY IN CARICATURE Nelson's victory in a cartoon entitled " Extirpation of the Plagues of Egypt, Destruction of the Revolutionary Croco- diles, or the British Hero Cleansing the Mouth of the Nile." Here Nelson is shown dispersing the French fleet treated as crocodiles. He has destroyed numbers with his cudgel of British oak; he is beating down others; a whole bevy, with hooks through their noses, are attached by strings to the iron hook which replaced his lost forearm. In the distance a crocodile is bursting and casting fire and ruin on all sides. This is an allusion to the destruction of the Orient, the flag- ship of the Republican Admiral, the heroic Brueys, who de- clined to quit his post when literally cut to pieces. Another cartoon by Gillray which belongs to this period is " The French Consular Triumvirate Settling the New Constitution." It introduces the figures of Napoleon and his fellow-consuls, Cambaceres and Lebrun, who replaced the very authors of the new instrument, Sieyes and Ducos, quietly deposed by Napoleon within the year. The second and third consuls are provided with blank sheets of paper, for mere form — they have only to bite their pens. The Corsican is compiling a constitution in accordance with his own views. A band of imps is beneath the table, forging new chains for France and for Europe. In England, the Addington ministry, which in 1801 re- placed that of William Pitt, and are represented in caricature as " Lilliputian substitutes " lost in the depths of Mr. Pitt's jack-boots, set out as a peace ministry and entered into the negotiations with Napoleon which, in the following March, resulted in the Peace of Amiens. Gillray anticipated this peace with several alarmist cartoons: "Preliminaries of Peace," representing John Bull being led by the nose across the channel over a rotten plank, while Britannia's shield and CENTURY IN CARICATURE 3i several valuable possessions have been cast aside into the water; and " Britannia's Death Warrant," in which Britannia is seen being dragged away to the guillotine by the Corsican marauder. The peace at first gave genuine satisfaction in England, but toward the end of 1802 there were growing signs of popular discontent, which Gillray voiced in " The Nursery, with Britannia Reposing in Peace." Britannia is here portrayed as an overgrown baby in her cradle and fed upon French principles by Addington, Lord Hawkesbury, and Fox. Still more famous was his next cartoon, " The First THE TWO KINGS OF TERROR. After a cartoon by Rowland son. Kiss this Ten Years ; or, the Meeting of Britannia and Citizen Francois." Britannia, grown enormously stout, her shield and spear idly reposing against the wall, is blushing deeply at his warm embrace and ardent expressions of joy: " Madame, permit me to pay my profound esteem to your engaging person, and to seal on your divine lips my everlast- ing attachment! ! !" She replies: "Monsieur, you are truly a well-bred gentleman ; and though you make me blush, 32 CENTURY IN CARICATURE yet you kiss so delicately that I cannot refuse you, though I was sure you would deceive me again." In the background the portraits of King George and Bonaparte scowl fiercely at each other upon the wall. This is said to be one of the very few caricatures which Napoleon himself heartily enjoyed. From now on, the cartoons take on a more caustic tone. Britannia is being robbed of her cherished possessions, even Malta being on the point of being wrested from her; while the bugaboo of an invading army looms large upon the horizon. In one picture Britannia, unexpectedly attacked by Napoleon's fleet, is awakening from a trance of fancied peace, and praying that her " angels and ministers of disgrace defend her! " In another, John Bull, having waded across the water, is taunting little Boney, whose head just shows above the wall of his fortress : If you mean to invade us, why make such a rout ? I say, little Boney, why don't you come out ? Yes, d you, why don't you come out ? In his cartoon called " Promised Horrors of the French Invasion ; or, Forcible Reasons for Negotiating a Regicide Peace," Gillray painted the imaginary landing of the French in England. The ferocious legions are pouring from St. James's Palace, which is in flames, and they are marching past the clubs. The practice of patronizing democracy in the countries they had conquered has been carried out by handing over the Tories, the constitution, and the crown to the Foxite reformers and the Whig party. The chief hostility of the French troops is directed against the aristocratic clubs. An indiscriminate massacre of the members of White's is pro- ceeding in the doorways, on the balconies, and wherever the republican levies have penetrated. The royal princes are stabbed and thrown into the street. A rivulet of blood is CENTURY IN CARICATURE 33 " You may have seen Gillray's famous print of him — in the old wig, in the stout, old, hideous Windsor uni- form — as the King of Brobdingnag, peering at a little Gulliver, whom he holds up in his hand, whilst in the other he has an opera-glass, through which he sur- veys the pygmy ? Our fathers chose to set up George as the type of a great king ; and the little Gulliver was the great Napoleon." — Thackeray's " Four Georges." 34 CENTURY IN CARICATURE running. In the center of the picture is a tree of liberty. To this tree Pitt is bound, while Fox is lashing him. The increasing venom of the English cartoons, and their frequent coarse personalities, caused no little uneasiness to Bonaparte, until they culminated in a famous cartoon by Gillray, " The Handwriting on the Wall," a broad satire on Belshazzar's feast, which was published August 24, 1803. The First Consul, his wife Josephine, and the members of the court are seated at table, consuming the good things of Old England. The palace of St. James, transfixed upon Napo- leon's fork; the tower of London, which one of the convives is swallowing whole; the head of King George on a platter inscribed: " Oh, de beef of Old England! " A hand above; holds out the scales of Justice, in which the legitimate crown of France weighs down the red cap with its attached chain — 1 despotism misnamed liberty. CHAPTER V THE EMPEROR AT HIS APOGEE FOR the next year parliamentary strife at home, fostered by Pitt's quarrel with the Addington ministry on the one hand and his opposition to Fox on the other, kept the cartoonists busy. They found time, however, to celebrate the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor in December, 1804. Gillray anticipated the event with a cartoon entitled " The Genius of France Nursing her Dar- ling," in which the genius, depicted as a lady with blood- stained garments and a reeking spear, tosses an infant Na- poleon, armed with a scepter, and vainly tries to check his cries with a rattle surmounted by a crown. Rowlandson, Gillray's clever and more artistic con- temporary, commemorated the event itself in a clever cartoon, " The Death of Madame Rdpublique," published December 14, 1804. The moribund Republique lies stretched upon her death-bed, her nightcap adorned with the tricolored cockade. The Abbe Sieyes, in the role of doctor, is exhibit- ing the Emperor, portrayed as a newborn infant in long clothes. John Bull, spectacles on nose, is regarding the altered conditions with visible astonishment. " Pray, Mr. Abbe Sieyes, what was the cause of the poor lady's death? lie seemed at one time in a tolerable thriving way." " She ied in childbed, Mr. Bull, after giving birth to this little Emperor! " This was followed on the 1st of January by a large satirical print by Gillray, of " The Grand Coronation Procession," 35 36 CENTURY IN CARICATURE in which the feature that gave special offense was the group of three princesses, the Princess Borghese,the Princess Louise, and the Princess Joseph Bonaparte, arrayed in garments of indecent scantiness, and heading the procession as the " three imperial Graces." The English caricatures of this period relating to the new Emperor and Empress are as a rule not FROM A GERMAN CARTOON OF THE PERIOD. only libelous, but grossly coarse. At the same time, the political conditions of the times are cleverly hit off in " The Plum Pudding in Danger; or, State Epicures Taking un Petit Souper," published February 26, 1805, which depicts the rival pretensions of Napoleon and Pitt. They are seated at opposite sides of the table, the only dish between them CENTURY IN CARICATURE 37 being the Globe, served up on a shallow plate and resembling a plum pudding. Napoleon's sword has sliced off the con- tinent — France, Holland, Spain, Italy, Prussia — and his fork is dug spitefully into Hanover, which was then an appanage of the British crown. Pitt's trident is stuck in the ocean, and his carver is modestly dividing the Globe down the middle. During the summer of 1805 the third coalition against France was completed, its chief factors being Great Britain, Russia, and Austria. A contemporary print entitled " Tom Thumb at Bay " commemorates the new armament. Napo- leon, dropping crown and scepter in his flight, is evading the Austrian eagle, the Russian bear, and the Westphalian pig, only to run at last pell-mell into the gaping jaws of the British lion. It is somewhat curious that the momentous events of the new war — the annihilation of the French fleet at Trafal- gar, the equally decisive French victory at Austerlitz — were scarcely noticed in caricature, and a few exceptions have little merit. But in the following January, 1806, when Napoleon had entered upon an epoch of king-making, with his kings of Wurtemburg and Bavaria, Gillray produced one of his most famous prints. It was published the 23d of January (the day that Pitt breathed his last), and was en- titled " Tiddy-Doll, the Great French Gingerbread Baker, Drawing out a new Batch of Kings, His Man, ' Hopping Talley,' Mixing up the Dough." The great gilt ginger- bread baker is shown at work at his new French oven for imperial gingerbread. He is just drawing from the oven's mouth a fresh batch of kings. The fuel is shown in the form of cannon-balls. Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Venice and Spain are following the fate of the French Re- public. On top of the chest of drawers, labeled respectively " kings and queens," " crowns and scepters,' 38 CENTURY IN CARICATURE moons " is arranged a gay parcel of little dough viceroys intended for the next batch. Among them are the figures of Fox, Sheridan, Derby, and others of the Whig party in England. In the comprehensive and ill-assorted Coalition ministry which was formed soon after Pitt's death, the caricaturists found a congenial topic for their pencils. They ridiculed it TlBDY-HOLiL mzjpvatFnmchGw^breatL-BaJittr,dirauAm) out a )m>BatdirfKvivp.-L'X™.>Ht^^'™*y-i>/<-fo' D ™3 1 ' unmercifully under the title " All the Talents," and the " Board Bottomed " ministry. A composite picture by Row- landson shows the ministry as a spectacled ape in the wig of a learned justice, with episcopal mitre and Catholic crozier. He wears a lawyer's coat and ragged breeches, with a shoe on one foot and a French jack-boot on the other. He is dancing on a funeral pyre of papers, the results of the administration, its endless negotiations with France, its sinecures and patron- ages, which are blazing away. The creature's foot is dis- charging a gun, which produces signal mischief in the rear CENTURY IN CARICATURE 39 and brings down two heavy folios, the Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath, upon its head. This ministry's futile negotiations for peace with France are frequently burlesqued. Gillray published on April 5 " Pacific Overtures; or, a Flight from St. Cloud's ' over the water to Charley,' " in which the negotiations are described as " a new dramatic peace, now rehearsing." In this cartoon King George has left the state box — where the play-book of " I Know You All " still remains open — to approach nearer " THE DEVIL AND NAPOLEON." From an anonymous French caricature. to little Boney, who, elevated on the clouds, is directing atten- tion to his proposed treaty. "Terms of Peace: Acknowl- edge me as Emperor; dismantle your fleet, reduce your armies; abandon Malta and Gibraltar; renounce all con- tinental connection; your colonies I will take at a valuation; engage to pay to the Great Nation for seven years annually one million pounds; and place in my hands as hostages the Princess Charlotte of Wales, with others of the late adminis- 40 CENTURY IN CARICATURE tration whom I shall name." King George replies: " Very amusing terms, indeed, and might do vastly well with some of the new-made little gingerbread kings; but we are not in the habit of giving up either ships or commerce or colonies merely because little Boney is in a pet to have them." This cartoon introduces among others Talleyrand, O'Conor, Fox, Lord Ellenborough, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Moira, Lord Lauderdale, Addington, Lord Henry Petty, Lord Derby, and Mrs. Fitzherbert. Shortly afterward, on July 21, 1806, Rowlandson voices the current feeling of distrust of Fox in " Experiments at Dover; or, Master Charley's Magic Lantern." Fox is depicted at Dover, training the rays of his magic lantern on the cliffs of Calais. John Bull, watching him, is not satis- fied. " Yes, yes, it be all very fine, if it be true; but I can't forget that d — d Omnium last week. . . I will tell thee what, Charley, since thee hast become a great man, I think in my heart thee beest always conjuring." The cartoon entitled " Westminster Conscripts under the Training Act" appeared September 1, 1806. Napoleon, the drill sergeant, is elevated on a pile of cannon-balls; he is giving his authoritative order to " Ground arms." The invalided Fox has been wheeled to the ground in his arm- chair; the Prince of Wales' plume appears on the back of his seat. Other figures in the cartoon are Lord Lauderdale, Lord Grenville, Lord Howick, Lord Holland, Lord Robert Spencer, Lord Ellenborough, the Duke of Clarence, Lord Moira, Lord Chancellor Erskine, Colonel Hanger, and Talleyrand. Gillray has left a cartoon commemorating the arrival of the Danish squadron, under the title of " British Tars Tow- ing the Danish Fleet into Harbor; the Broad Bottom #/ Co/?*f////7l- Iapoleon : " Dear cousfn, how do you find my condition ? " ardinal Fksch : "Sire, it cannot last. Your Majesty has too bad a constitution." From the collection of John Leonard Dudley, Jr. CENTURY IN CARICATURE 43 Leviathan trying to swamp Billy's Old Boat; and the Little Corsican Tottering on the Clouds of Ambition." This car- toon was issued October i, 1807. Lords Liverpool and Castlereagh are lustily rowing the Billy Pitt; Canning, seated in the stern, is towing the captured fleet into Sheerness, with the Union Jack flying over the forts. Copenhagen, smoking from the recent bombardment, may be distinguished in the distance. In Sheerness harbor the sign of'" Good Old George " is hung out at John Bull's Tavern; John Bull is seated at the door, a pot of porter in his hand, waving his hat and shouting: "Rule Britannia! Britannia Rules the Waves ! " That the expedition did not escape censure is shown by the figure of a three-headed porpoise which is savagely assailing the successful crew. This monster bears the heads of Lord Howick, shouting " Detraction! " Lord St. Vincent filled with " Envy," and discharging a watery- broadside; and Lord Grenville, who is raising his " Opposi- tion Clamor " to confuse their course. CHAPTER VI napoleon's waning power NO period of the Napoleonic wars gave better op- portunity for satire than Napoleon's disastrous occupation of Spain and his invasion of Portugal. The titles alone of the cartoons would fill a volume. The sanguine hopes of success cherished by the English govern- ment are expressed by Gillray in a print published April 10, 1808. " Delicious Dreams! Castles in the Air! Glorious Prospects ! " It depicts the ministers sunken in a drunken sleep and visited by glorious visions of Britannia and her lion occupying a triumphal car formed from the hull of a British ship, drawn by an Irish bull and led by an English tar. She is dragging captive to the Tower little Boney and the Russian Bear, both loaded with chains. The dangers which threatened Napoleon at this period were shown by Gillray in one of the most striking of all his car- toons, the "Valley of the Shadow of Death," which was issued September 24, 1808. The valley is the valley of Bunyan's allegory. The Emperor is proceeding timorously down a treacherous path, bounded on either side by the waters of Styx and hemmed in by a circle of flame. From every side horrors are springing up to assail him. The British lion, raging and furious, is springing at his throat. The Portu- guese wolf has broken his chain. King Death, mounted on a mule of " True Royal Spanish Breed," has cleared at a bound the body of the ex-King Joseph, which has been thrown into the " Ditch of Styx." Death is poising his spear with fatal 44 h ^ z f p-l « > £ 'i "the partition of the map." From the collection of John Leonard Dudley, Jr. \buying every caricature, in loyal contest to prove their national enmity for Bonaparte. In too many cases, the incen- tive was to gratify the hatred of the Corsican rather than any remarkable merit that could be discovered in the caricatures. Very few of these mock-heroic sallies imprint themselves upon 50 CENTURY IN CARICATURE the recollection by sheer force of their own brilliancy, as was j the case with Gillray, and frequently with John Tenniel. Rowlandson and Cruikshank are risible, but not inspired." On July 8 Rowlandson began his series with " The Corsican Tiger at Bay." Napoleon is depicted as a savage tiger, rending four " Royal Greyhounds," quite at his mercy. But a fresh pack appears in the background and prepares for a fierce charge. The Russian bear and Austrian eagle are securely bound with heavy fetters, but the eagle is asking : " Now, Brother Bruin, is it time to break our fetters? " " The Beast as Described in the Revelations " followed " THE CHIEF OF THE GRAND ARMY IN A SAD PLIGHT." From a French cartoofi of the pei'iod. within two weeks. The beast, of Corsican origin, is repre- sented with seven heads, and the names of Austria, Naples, Holland, Denmark, Prussia, and Russia are inscribed on their respective crowns. Napoleon's head, severed from the trunk, vomits forth flames. In the distance, cities are blazing, showing the destruction wrought by the beast. Spain is represented as the champion who alone dares to stand against the monster. "The Political Butcher" bears date September 12 of CENTURY IN CARICATURE 51 the same year. In this print the Spanish Don, in the garb of a butcher, is cutting up Bonaparte for the benefit of his neighbors. The body of the late Corsican lies before him and is being cut up with professional zeal. The Don holds up his enemy's heart and calls upon the other Powers to take their share. The double-headed eagle of Austria is swoop- ing upon Napoleon's head : " I have long wished to strike my talons into that diabolical head-piece"; the British bulldog has been enjoying portions of the joints, and thinks that he would " like to have the picking of that head." The Russian bear is luxuriously licking Napoleon's boots, and re- marks, " This licking is giving me a mortal inclination to pick a bone." The final failure of the Spanish campaign is signalized, September 20, in a cartoon labeled " Napoleon the Little in a Rage with his Great French Eagle." The Emperor, with drawn sword and bristling with rage, threatens the French imperial eagle, larger than himself. The bird's head and one leg are tied up — the result of damage inflicted by the Spaniards. " Confusion and destruction! " thunders Napo- leon, " what is this I see? Did I not command you not to return until you had spread your wing of victory over the whole of Spain? " " Aye, it's fine talking," rejoins the bird, " but if you had been there, you would not much have liked it. The Spanish cormorants pursued me in such a manner that they set me molting in a terrible way. I wonder that I have not lost my feathers. Besides, it got so hot I could not bear it any longer." In August, 1809, Rowlandson published "The Rising Sun." Bonaparte is surrounded by the Continental powers, and is busy rocking to sleep in a cradle the Russian bear, securely muzzled with French promises. But the dawn of a CENTURY IN CARICATURE 53 new era is breaking : the sun of Spain and Portugal is rising with threatening import. The Emperor is disturbed by the new light: " This rising sun has set me upon thorns." The Prussian eagle is trussed; Denmark is snuffed out. But Austria has once more taken heart : " Tyrant, I defy thee and thy cursed crew ! " The victories of the Peninsular war, and later of the disastrous Russian campaign, called forth an ever-increasing number of cartoons, which showed little mercy or considera- tion to a fallen foe. A sample of the titles of this period show the general tendency; he is the " Corsican Bloodhound," the "Carcass-Butcher"; he is a jail-bird doing the "Rogues' March to the Island of Elba." An analysis of a few of the more striking cartoons will serve to close the survey of the Napoleonic period. " Death and Bonaparte " is a grew- some cartoon by Rowlandson, dated January i, 1814. Na- poleon is seated on a drum with his head clasped between his hands, staring into the face of a skeleton Death, who is watch- ing the baffled general, face to face. Death mockingly parodies Napoleon's attitude. A broken eagle, the imperial standard, lies at his bony feet. In the background the Rus- sian, Prussian, Austrian, and other allied armies are stream- ing past in unbroken ranks, routing the dismayed legions of France. " Bloody Boney, the Corsican Butcher, Left off Trade and Retiring to Scarecrow Island " is the title, of still another of Rowlandson's characteristic cartoons. In it Napoleon is represented as riding on a rough-coated donkey and wearing a fool's cap in place of a crown. His only provision is a bag of brown bread. His consort is riding on the same beast, which is being unmercifully flogged with a stick labeled " Baton Marechal." < s s 3 > 8 O w «*, * ^ M CENTURY IN CARICATURE 59 response. It would be idle to deny that for the purpose of spurring on public opinion, the Napoleonic cartoons exercised a potent influence. They kept popular excitement at fever heat; they added fuel to the general hatred. But when the crisis was passed, when the public pulse was beating normally once more, when virulent attacks upon a helpless exile had ceased to seem amusing, there really remained no material upon which caricature of the Gillray type could exercise its" offensive ingenuity. What seemed justifiable license when directed against the arch-enemy of European peace would have been insufferable when applied to British statesmen and to the milder problems of local political issues. Another and quite practical reason helps to explain the dearth of political caricature in England for a full generation after the battle of Waterloo, and that is the question of expense. A public which freely gave shillings and even pounds to see its hatred of " Little Boney " interpreted with Gillray's vindictive malice hesitated to expend even pennies for a cartoon on the corn laws or the latest ministerial changes. In England, as well as on the Continent, caricature as an effective factor in politics remained in abeyance until the advent of an essentially modern type of periodical, the comic weekly, of which La Caricature, the London Punch, the Fliegende Blatter, and in this country Puck and Judge, are the most famous examples. The progress of lithography made such a periodical possible in France as early as 1830, when La Caricature was founded by the famous Philipon; but the oppressive laws of censor- ship throughout Europe prevented any wide development of this class of journalism until after the general political up- heaval of 1848. It would be idle, however, to deny that Gillray exerted a CENTURY IN CARICATURE 61 lasting influence upon all future caricature. His license, his vulgarity, his repulsive perversion of the human face and form, have found no disciples in later generations; but his effective assemblage of many figures, the crowded significance of minor details, the dramatic unity of the whole conception which he inherited from Hogarth, have been passed on down the line and still continue to influence the leading cartoonists of to-day in England, Germany, and the United States, although to a much less degree in France. Even at the time of Napoleon's downfall the few cartoons which appeared in Paris were far less extreme than their English models, while the German caricaturists, on the contrary, were extremely virulent, notably the Berliner, Schadow, who openly acknowl- edged his indebtedness to the Englishman by signing himself the Parisian Gillray; and Volz, author of the famous " true portrait of Napoleon " — a portrait in which Napoleon's face, upon closer inspection, is seen made up of a head of inextrica- bly tangled dead bodies, his head surmounted by a bird of prey, his breast a map of Europe overspread by a vast spider web, in which the different national capitals are entangled like so many luckless flies. Had there been more liberty of the press, an interesting school of political cartoonists might have arisen at this time in Germany. But they met with such scanty encouragement that little of real interest is to be gleaned from this source until after the advent of the Berlin Kladderadatsch in 1848, and the Fliegende Blatter, but a short time earlier. Brum tjecomc Mehhatidii y.Myorwfr/Mjo,- Pie ace. RUSSIA AS MEDIATOR BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN. From the collection of thk. New York Public Library. AN AMERICAN CARTOON OF THE WAR OF lSl2. WWT HilJLl, u ,*tff l cAl/H'XANm J 7AN&, ^N Come alonD yaw old Hajcal did not hno'xi tilt tna\ faa-M! Mowuetr Gull you i ututtA ifhrh A CARICATURE OF THE WAR OF 1 8 12 From the collection of the New York Public Library. CHAPTER VIII THE " POIRE " THROUGHOUT the Napoleonic period England practically had a monopoly in caricature. During the second period, down to the year 1848, France is the center of interest. Prior to 1830, French political car- toons were neither numerous nor especially significant. In- deed they present a simplicity of imagination rather amusing as compared with the complicated English caricatures. A hate of the Jesuits, a mingling of liberalism, touched with Bonapartism, and the war of newspapers furnished the theme. The two symbols constantly recurring are the girouette, or weather-cock, and the eteignoir, or extinguisher. Many of the French statesmen who played a prominent part during the French Empire and after the Restoration changed their politi- cal creed with such surprising rapidity that it was difficult to keep track of their changes. They were accordingly symbo- lized by a number of weathercocks proportioned to the num- ber of their political conversions, Talleyrand leading the pro- cession, with not less than seven to his credit. The eteignoir was constantly used in satire directed against the priesthood, the most famous instance appearing in the Minerva in 18 19. It took for the text a refrain from a song of Beranger. In this cartoon the Church is personified by the figure of the Pope holding in one hand a sabre, and, in the other, a paper with the words Bulls, crusades, Sicilian vespers, St. Bartholomew. Beside the figure of the Church, torch in hand, is the demon 65 66 CENTURY IN CARICATURE of discord. From the smoke of the torch of the demon various horrors are escaping. We read " the restoration of feudal rights," " feudal privileges," " division of families." ; Monks are trying to snuff out the memory of Fenelon, Buff on, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montaigne, and other philosophers and thinkers. For ten years the caricaturists played with this theme. A feeble forerunner of La Caricature, entitled he Nain Jaune, depended largely for its wit upon the varia- tions it could improvise upon the gironette and upon the eteignoir. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that French art was quite destitute of humorists at the beginning of the century. M. Armand Dayot, in a monograph upon French cari- cature, mentions among others the names of Isabey, Boilly, and Carle Vernet as rivaling the English cartoonists in the ingenuity of their designs, and surpassing them in artistic finish and harmony of color. " But," he adds, " they were never able to go below the surface in their satire. It would be a mistake to enroll in the hirsute cohort of caricaturists these witty and charming artists, who were more concerned in de- picting the pleasures of mundane life than in castigating its vices and irregularities." The 4th of November, 1830, is a momentous date in the history of French caricature. Prior to that time, French cartoons, such as there were, were studi- ously, even painfully, impersonal. Thackeray, in his delight- ful essay upon " Caricatures and Lithography," in the " Paris Sketch Book," describes the conditions of this period with the following whimsical allegory: " As for poor caricature and freedom of the press, they, like the rightful princess in a fairy tale, with the merry fan- tastic dwarf, her attendant, were entirely in the power of the giant who rules the land. The Princess, the press, was so ^ 68 CENTURY IN CARICATURE uU„ closely watched and guarded (with some little show, neverthe less, of respect for her rank) that she dared not utter a word of her own thoughts; and, as for poor Caricature, he was gagged and put out of the way altogether." On this famous 4th of November, however, there ap- peared the initial number of Philipon's La Caricature, which PROUDHON. was destined to usher in a new era of comic art, and which proved the most efficacious weapon which the Republicans found to use against Louis Philippe — a weapon as redoubt- able as La Lanterne of Henri Rochefort became under the Second Empire. Like several of his most famous collabora- tors, Charles Philipon was a Meridional. He was born in CENTURY IN CARICATURE 69 Lyons at the opening of the century. He studied art in the atelier of Gros. He married into the family of an eminent publisher of prints, M. Aubert, and was himself suc- cessively the editor of the three most famous comic papers that France has had, La Caricature, Charivari, and the Jour- DIGGING THE GRAVE. nal pour Rire. The first of these was a weekly paper. The Charivari appeared daily, and at first its cartoons were almost exclusively political. Philipon had gathered around him a group of artists, men like Daumier, Gavarni, Henry Mon- nier, and Travies, whose names afterward became famous, and they united in a veritable crusade of merciless ridicule against the king, his family, and his supporters. Their satire took the form of bitter personal attacks, and a very curious contest ensued between the government and the editorial staff of the Charivari. As Thackeray sums it up, it was a struggle between " half a dozen poor artists on the one side and His Majesty Louis Philippe, his august family, and the number- less placemen and supporters of the monarchy on the other; it was something like Thersites girding at Ajax." Time after time were Philipon and his dauntless aids arrested. More than a dozen times they lost their cause before a jury, yet each defeat was equivalent to a victory, bringing them new sym- pathy, and each time they returned to the attack with cartoons Taut J&u+JcAtf Jaj** C^JuaJ. lVy-*v & THE PIOUS MONARCH. CARICATURE OF CHARLES X. CENTURY IN CARICATURE 75 huge, ungainly teeth, projecting like the incisors of a horse. In one memorable cartoon he is expending the full crushing power of these teeth upon the famous " charter" of 1830, but is finding it a nut quite too hard to crack. From the very beginning La Caricature assumed an atti- CHARLES X. IN THE R6LE OF THE "GREAT NUTCRACKER." In this caricature Charles X. is attempting to break with his teeth a billiard ball on which is written the word " Charter." The cartoon is entitled "The Great Nutcracker of July 25th, or the Impotent Horse-jaw " (ganache) — a play upon words. tude of hostile suspicion toward Louis Philippe, the pretended champion of the bourgeoisie, whose veneer of expedient re- publicanism never went deeper than to send his children to the 76 CENTURY IN CARICATURE public schools, and to exhibit himself parading the streets of Paris, umbrella in hand. Two cartoons which appeared in the early days of his reign, and are labeled respectively " Ne voiis y frottez pas " and " // v'a bon train, le Ministere! " admirably illustrate the public lack of confidence. The first of these, an eloquent lithograph by Daumier, represents a powerfully built and resolute young journeyman printer stand- ing with hands clinched, ready to defend the liberty of the press. In the background are two groups. In the one Charles X., already worsted in an encounter, lies prone upon the earth ; in the other Louis Philippe, waving his ubiquitous umbrella, is with difficulty restrained from assuming the ag- gressive. 1 he second of these cartoons is more sweeping in its indictment. It represents the sovereign and his ministers in their " chariot of state," one and all lashing the horses into a mad gallop toward a bottomless abyss. General Soult, the Minister of War, is flourishing and snapping a military flag, in place of a whip. At the back of the chariot a Jesuit has succeeded in securing foothold upon the baggage, and is adding his voice to hasten the forward march, all symbolic of the violent momentum of the reactionary movement. It was not likely that the part which Louis Philippe played in the revolution of 1789, his share in the republican victories of Jemappes and of Valmy, would be forgotten by those who saw in him only a pseudo-republican, a "citizen king" in name only, and who seized eagerly upon the opportunity of mocking at his youthful espousal of republicanism. The names of these battles recur again and again in the caricature of the period, in the legends, in maps conspicuously hung upon the walls of the background. An anonymous cut represents the public gazing eagerly into a magic lantern, the old " Poire " officiating as showman: " You have before you g ^ M ffi H % H •K> <1 M pi g o O o O^ 8 4 CENTURY IN CARICATURE of satisfaction over a work well done. Grandville also con- ceived the idea, worthy of a great cartoonist, of Processions and Corteges. These enabled him to have pass before the eye, under costumes, each conveying some subtle irony or allusion, all the political men in favor. Every occasion was THE RESUSCITATION OF THE FRENCH CENSORSHIP. By Grandville. good. A religious procession, and the men of the day ap- peared as choir boys, as acolytes, etc. Uti vote de budget, and then it was line marche de boeuf gras, with savages, musketeers, clowns forming the escort of " M . Gros, gras et bete." It is easy to guess who was the personage so desig- / c c S= CD £ <" *"' 3 s** B •" CO o |»ni ^3 c o - £ t3 « co - S 5^ to ■- ,0 O CO ^} Q i- ^ fi PL, rt c3 xc<^fy PROGRAMME OF A THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE GIVEN BY THE FRENCH SOLDIERS IN THE TRENCHES BEFORE SEBASTOPOL. CENTURY IN CARICATURE •39 Lion Smells a Rat," which depicts an angry lion sniffing suspiciously at the crack of a door, behind which is being held the conference which followed the fall of Sebastopol. But by far the most famous instance of Tenniel's work is his series of Cawnpore cartoons, the series bearing upon the Indian mutiny of 1857; an d one of the finest, if not the very finest, of them all is that entitled " The British Lion's Venge- ance on the Bengal Tiger." It represents in the life work of Tennielwhat" General Fevrier Turned Traitor" stands for in the life work of John Leech. The subject was suggested to Tenniel by Shirley Brooks. It summed up all the horror and thirst for revenge which animated England when the news came of the treacherous atrocities of the Sepoy rebels. The Cawnpore massacre of women and children ordered by the infamous Nana Sahib had taken place in June, and when this cartoon appeared in Punch, August 22, 1857, England had just sent thirty thousand troops to India. In the picture the British lion is springing at the throat of the Bengal tiger, be en Inoffcn3ive Animal, but he Don't Look like it Napoleon III. as a porcupine, bristling with French bayonets in place of quills. One of Napoleon's favorite sayings was " U Empire c'est la paix." But this saying was very often contradicted by events, and the first ten years of his occupa- tion of the French throne showed France embroiled in the Crimean War and the war with Austria. In preparation for the latter conflict a large increase was being made in the 142 CENTURY IN CARICATURE French military armament; and Leech seized upon the em- peror's dictum only to express his skepticism. The cartoon appeared in March, 1859. As a matter of fact, the idea in this cartoon had previously been used in another called ' The Puppet Show," published in June, 1854, depicting the Czar Nicholas in a manner closely similar; yet Mr. Spiel- mann, who notes this fact, adds that Mr. Leech had probably never seen, or else had forgotten, the earlier caricature. This " French Porcupine " is cited as an instance of Leech's ex- traordinary speed in executing a cartoon directly upon the wooden block. The regular Punch dinner had that week been held a day late. " Every moment was precious, and Leech proposed the idea for the cartoon, drew it in two hours, and caught his midday train on the following day, speeding away into the country with John Tenniel for their usual Sat- urday hunt." It was during this same year, 1859, at the close of the war which humbled Austria and forced her to surrender Venetia to Sardinia, that Leech voiced the suspicion that Louis was casting longing eyes upon Italian territory in a cartoon entitled " A Scene from the New Pantomime." Na- poleon III. here figures as a clown, a revolver in his hand, a goose labeled Italy protruding from his capacious pocket. He is earnestly assuring Britannia, represented as a stout, elderly woman, eying him suspiciously, that his intentions are strictly honorable. PART III THE CIVIL AND FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WARS CHAPTER XVI THE MEXICAN WAR AND SLAVERY IN this country the political cartoon, which practically began with William Charles's parodies upon Gillray, developed in a fitful and spasmodic fashion until about the middle of the century. Their basis was the Gillray group of many figures, and they had also much of the Gill- ray coarseness and indecency, with a minimum of artistic skill. They were mostly lithographs of the crudest sort, designed to pass from hand to hand, or to be tacked up on the wall. It was not until the first administration of Andrew Jackson that a school of distinctly American political cari- cature can be said to have existed. It was in 1848 that the firm of Currier & Ives, with an office in Nassau Street, in New York City, began the publication of a series of cam- paign caricatures of sufficient merit to have been a serious factor in influencing public opinion. Crude as they are, these lithographs are exceedingly interesting to study in de- tail. They tell their story very plainly, even apart from the legends inclosed in the huge balloon-like loops issuing from the lips of each member of the group — loops that suggest a grotesque resemblance to a soap-bubble party on a large scnle. There is an amusing stiffness about the figures. They stand in such painfully precise attitudes that at a little dis- 143 NEW EDITION OF MACBETH — BANK-OH'S GHOST ! 1837. One of the caricatures inspired by the United States Bank Case. From the collection of the Neio Yo?-k Pubic Library. BALAAM AND BALAAM S ASS. One of the caricatures inspired by the United States Bank Case. From the collection of the New York Public Library. 2 ^ H Q . P CO < M CO W M w H o C/3 3 fl § 3 3$ "fe '55 £> CENTURY IN CARICATURE , 49 tance they might readily be mistaken for some antiquated fashion plates. The faces, however, are in most cases excel- lent likenesses; they are neither distorted nor exaggerated. The artists, while sadly behind the times in retaining the use of the loop which Continental cartoonists discarded much ^ earlier, were in other respects quite up-to-date, especially in adopting the method of the elder Doyle, whose great con- tribution to caricature was that of drawing absolutely faithful likenesses of the statesmen he wished to ridicule, relying for the humor of the cartoon upon the situation in which he placed them. It was only natural that the events of the Mexican War should have inspired a number of cartoons. One of these is entitled "Uncle Sam's Taylorifics," and shows a complacent Yankee coolly snipping a Mexican in two with a huge pair of shears. One blade bears the inscription " Vol- unteers," and the other " General Taylor." The Yankee's left arm is labeled " Eastern States," the tail of his coat " Oregon," his belt " Union," his left leg " Western States," and his right leg, which he is using vigorously on the Mexi- can, " Southern States," and the boot " Texas." Below the discomfited Mexican yawns the Rio Grande. Behind the Yankee's back John Bull — a John Bull of the type introduced by William Charles during the War of 1812 — is looking on enviously. American national feeling on the subject of the European Powers deriving benefit from the discovery of gold in Cali- fornia is illustrated by a cartoon which shows the United States ready to defend her possessions by force of arms. The various Powers have crossed the sea and are very near to our coast. Queen Victoria, mounted on a bull, is in the lead. She is saying: "Oh, dear Albert, don't you cry for me. I'm off for California with my shovel on my knee." Behind < 1 1 w 03 ? ^ PI 5$ 1 H .§ % 9 & < 53*1* CJ Q m ■ « 1 z U L!*jBl*- Or by Ike k!£i """■ H"**** " Ta . ltef , > take feed rare nf all J ^Z ym tow Held for all Ireallm Z ■, 7TT7 >„is u la arand J/ at ml. Sen please ft ye seme fo J^sjma JW just l/eeeme Hf ■ -£>SS^£5i . Jnd iark I shall net Hire ie '*£>ll OEFENCE0T TH.EL_CAUFOR.NI A . 8Ar From the collection of the New York Historical Society. Mi ||AT FOOTRACE fOR THE PHES.OENTIAL PURSE S10O, 000 AND PICKINGS) OVER THE UNION COURSE 1852. From the collection oj the New York Historical Society. L - ? '" :->j? 156 CENTURY IN CARICATURE Pierce, " you don't catch this child fainting now. I am going to make good time ! Whether I win or not, Legs, do your duty." Caricature dealing with the Presidential campaign of 1856 is represented by the cartoon called " The Presidential Campaign of '56." Buchanan, who proved the successful candidate, is mounted on a hideous monster resembling a snake, and marked " Slavery." The monster is being wheeled along on a low, flat car drawn by Pierce, Douglas, and Cass. A star bearing the word " Kansas " is about to disappear down the monster's throat. In the distance Fre- mont, on horseback, is calling out: " Hold on! Take that animal back! We don't want it this side of the fence." Buchanan is saying, " Pull down that fence and make way for the Peculiar Institution." The fence in question is the Mason and Dixon's line. The faces of Cass, Douglas, and Pierce, who are drawing along the monster, are obliterated — they are absolutely formless. The evils of slavery from a Northern point of view are shown in a cartoon called " No Higher Law." King Slavery is seated on his throne holding aloft a lash and a chain. Under his left elbow is the Fugitive Slave Bill, resting on three human skulls. Daniel Webster stands beside the throne, holding in his hand the scroll on which is printed, " I propose to support that bill to the fullest extent — to the fullest extent." A runaway slave is fighting off the blood- hounds that are worrying him, and in the distance, on a hill, the figure of Liberty is toppling from her pedestal. The cartoon " Practical Illustration of the Fugitive Slave Law " sums up very completely Abolitionist sentiment on the subject. The slaveholder, with a noose in one hand and a chain in the other, a cigar in his mouth and his top-hat — ! ■■ ■■■ a ■-' -JfeiM-hniniertjaiiiim MHntmiilMf5»h $ CENTURY IN CARICATURE 271 and covered with a loose sheet. The lighted candles at the four corners protrude from the necks of bottles, and the mourners are indulging in a protracted carouse which seems destined to end in a free fight. In the center of the picture Kelly, with Ben Butler as a partner, is doing a dance in the most approved manner of Donnybrook Fair. All about there is the general atmosphere of turmoil and unnatural excite- ment, but the figures of Hewitt, Davis, Belmont, and English are stretched out in a manner indicating that the festivities of the night have proved too much for them. As has already been pointed out, the political caricature commemorating the Cleveland-Blaine campaign of 1884 was chiefly remarkable for its extraordinary rancor. There was little, if any, really good-natured satire underlying these cartoons; they were designed and executed vindictively, and their main object was to hurt. Mr. Cleveland's official record in Buffalo, and as Governor of New York, had been such as to cause many of the more liberal Republicans to sup- port his candidacy and offered little to the political cartoonist, so the opponents of Republican caricature found it expedient to base their attacks on matters of purely personal nature. Even in later years the cartoonist did not entirely refrain from this method of belittling Mr. Cleveland's capabilities. It was sneeringly said that much of the success of his ad- ministration was due to the charm, the tact, and the personal magnetism of Mrs. Cleveland, and this idea was the inspira- tion of a number of cartoons which were far from being in the best of taste. One of these which was not particularly offensive was that entitled " Mr. Cleveland's Best Card." It was simply a huge playing card bearing the picture of Mrs. Cleveland. Another much more obnoxious was a curious imitation of the famous French cartoon " Partant pour la J_l ■s Ph ■& < g Ph .a r o o -« C-* pj w > o m W < £ B w H CENTURY IN CARICATURE 273 A COMMON SORROW. Syrie," which was published in Paris after the flight of the Empress Eugenie. The Democratic cartoonists, besides their use of the Tat- tooed Man idea and the alleged scandals in Mr. Blaine's political career, made a strong point of the soundness and cleanness of Mr. Cleveland's official record. A typical cari- cature of this nature was that drawn by Gillam called " Why They Dislike Him." It represents Mr. Cleveland as a lion lying on the rock of Civil Service Reform. Perched on the limb of a tree overhead are a group of chattering monkeys, his political enemies, who are hurling at him imprecations and abuse because he will not consent to serve as the cats- paw to pluck the chestnuts for them out of the political fire. £i •€, ■n o; Q ^ X > H ■K. > k X •5 £ ," Jan. 5, iSq2. 296 CENTURY IN CARICATURE Overdoing it? " took a kindlier and a more charitable view of the whole affair. His Royal Highness is explaining the matter to a most horrible looking British Pharisee. " Don't be too hard on me, Mr. Stiggins," he says. " I am not such a bad sort of a fellow, on the whole. You mustn't believe all that you read in the papers." The nature of the American K- C r O - 5 M "3 O S s °§ 1 > _ ts ■? Si cs y CENTURY IN CARICATURE 313 ing majorities. What was to be done? It was too late to prepare another cartoon, so that the plate already made was taken from the press, and the cartoonist set to work. To the discomfited countenance of Mr. Cleveland Gillam at- tached a beard which transformed the face into a likeness to that of the defeated Republican candidate. A huge patch drawn over one of the eyes of the Republican elephant changed its appearance of elation to one of the most woe- begone depression. Other slight changes in the legends here and there throughout the picture transformed its nature to such an extent that only the most practiced eye could detect anything that was not wholly spontaneous and genuine. To cap it all, in a corner of the picture Gillam drew a likeness of himself in the form of a monkey turning an uncomfortable somersault. With a knowledge of these facts the reader by a close examination of this cartoon, which is reproduced in this volume, will undoubtedly detect the lines along which the lightning change was made. Nevertheless, it will be im- possible for him to deny that the transformation was cleverly done. Besides being the year of the Presidential campaign, 1892 was a year when the thoughts of Americans were turned back- ward four centuries to the time when Christopher Columbus first landed on the shore of the Western Hemisphere. The original ships of Columbus's fleet were being brought over the water from Spain; the Columbus idea was being exploited everywhere in topical song and light opera ; and it would have been strange indeed if it had failed to play some part in political caricature. Gillam in Judge made use of it in the cartoon entitled " The Political Columbus Who Will NOT Land in '92." It represents the ship of the Democracy with Mr. Cleveland as Columbus gazing anxiously and uneasily CENTURY IN CARICATURE 3i5 at the horizon. At the bow of the ship is the lion's head and the shield of Britannia, in allusion to Mr. Cleveland's alleged pro-English sympathies. The sail upon which the ship is relying for its progress is marked " Free Trade " and is a woefully patched and weather-beaten bit of canvas. The crew of the ship is a strange assortment which suggests all sorts of mutiny and piracy. In the front of the vessel and close behind the captain are Dana, Croker, Sheehan, and Hill. Beyond them we see the figures of Cochran, Carlisle, Crisp, Brice, and Mills and Flower. In the far aft are Blackburn and Gorman. Evidently crew and captain are animated by despair, although the gull, bearing the features of Mr. Pulitzer, of the New York World, that is circling around the ship, shows that land is not so many miles away. " I don't see land," cries Cleveland-Columbus. And the despairing crew, pointing to the Free Trade sail, calls back, " And you never will with that rotten canvas." In contrast with the vindictive and malicious character of 316 CENTURY IN CARICATURE the cartoons which heralded Mr. Cleveland's first election, there was a marked absence of unpleasant personalities in those which belong to the period of his second term. There was no disposition, however, to spare him in regard to the growing difficulty he had in holding his party together or his assumption of what Republicans regarded as an entirely un- warranted degree of authority. This autocratic spirit was cleverly satirized by a cartoon in Judge, to which allusion has already been made. It consists simply of a map of the United States so drawn as to form a grotesque likeness of the President. He is bending low in an elaborate bow, in which mock-humility and glowing self-satisfaction are amus- ingly blended, his folded hands forming the Florida penin- sula, his coat-tails projecting into lower California. Beneath is inscribed the following paraphrase : My country, 'tis of ME, Sweet land of liberty, Of ME I sing! Mr. Cleveland's troubles with his party began early in his second administration. As early as April we find him de- picted by Judge as the " Political Bull in the Democratic China-Shop." The bull has already had time to do a vast amount of havoc. The plate-glass window, commanding a view of the national capitol, is a wreck, and the floor is strewn with the remains of delicate cups and platters, amidst which may still be recognized fragments of the " Baltimore Machine," " Rewards for Workers," " Wishes of the Leaders," etc. An elaborate vase, marked " N. Y. Ma- chine," and bearing a portrait of Senator Hill, is just top- pling over, to add its fragments to the general wreckage. The general depression of trade and the much-debated issue of tariff reform recur again and again in the caricatures 3 i8 CENTURY IN CARICATURE of the second Cleveland administration, especially after the Republican landslide of 1893. Thus, in December of that year, a significant cartoon in Judge represents the leading statesmen of each party engaged in a game of " National Football," the two goals being respectively marked " Protec- tion " and " Free Trade. 1 ' " Halfback " Hill is saying, " Brace up, Cap; we've got the ball," and Captain Grover, nursing a black eye, rejoins disconsolately, " That's all very well, boys, but they've scored against us, and we've got to put up the game of our lives to beat them." In January the same periodical published a pessimistic sketch, showing Uncle Sam, shivering with cold, and his hands plunged deep into his pockets, gloomily watching the mercury in the " In- dustrial Thermometer " sinking steadily lower from protec- tion and plenty, through idleness, misery, and starvation, to the zero point of free trade. " Durn the Democratic weather, anyway," says Uncle Sam. A more hopeful view of the situation found expression in Puck, in a cartoon entitled " Relief at Hand." Labor, in the guise of an Alpine traveler, has fallen by the wayside, and lies half buried beneath the snows of the " McKinley Tariff." Help, how- ever, has come, in the form of a St. Bernard, named " Wil- son Tariff Bill," while Cleveland, in the guise of a monk, is hastening from the neighboring monastery, drawn in the semblance of the national capitol. Still another cartoon harping on the need of tariff reform represents McKinley and the other leading Republicans as " Ponce de Leon and His Followers," gathered around a pool labeled " High Protec- tion Doctrine." " They think it is the fountain of political youth and strength, but it is only a stagnant pool that is almost dried up." Among the many caricatures in which Judge supported the opposite side, and heaped ridicule on 320 CENTURY IN CARICATURE the Wilson Bill, one of the best shows Uncle Sam retiring for the night, and examining with disgust and wrath the meager crazy quilt (the Wilson Bill) with which he has been THE HARRISON PLATFORM. By Keppler in " Puck.'''' provided in lieu of blankets. " I'll freeze to death," he is grumbling, " and yet some of those idiots call this a protec- tive measure." Mr. Cleveland's determination to return to the South the flags captured in the War of Secession, in the hopes of put- ting an end to sectional feeling, brought down upon his head the wrath of the more extreme Republican element, a wrath CENTURY IN CARICATURE 321 which was reflected strongly, editorially and pictorially, in the papers of the day. This suggested to Judge the cartoon en- titled " Halt," in which Mr. Cleveland, in the act of handing back the captured flags, is restrained by the spirit of Lincoln, which says, " Had you fought for those flags you would not be so quick to give them away ! " To which Mr. Cleveland is made to reply, " Great Scott ! I thought you were dead and forgotten long ago. I only meant to please Mr. Solid South. They're rubbish, anyhow." This is another cartoon from the hand of the prolific Gillam. The movement for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, which occurred in the spring of 1893, an d which many Americans were inclined to regard with suspicion and disfavor, was commemorated in a great variety of cartoons, both in this country and abroad. It was only natural that a movement which owed its inception to a Republican ad- ministration, should receive the cordial approval and indorse- ment of Judge. A cartoon, dated February 18, represents Columbia in the guise of an exemplary modern school-mis- tress, serenely holding in order her turbulent class of mingled Chinese, negroes, Indians, Italian organ-grinders, and Rus- sian anarchists, while she gives a cordial welcome to the small, half-naked new scholar from the Pacific, who is timidly begging to be admitted. Canada, represented as a demure little maiden, stands just behind Hawaii, an interested specta- tor, apparently more than half inclined to follow his example. In much the same spirit was a design that appeared in the Wasp, representing Uncle Sam in the character of St. Peter, holding the key to America's political paradise. " Poor little imp," he is saying to the Hawaiian applicant, " I don't see why I should shut you out, when I've let in all the tramps of the world already." Another cartoon which appeared in 322 CENTURY IN CARICATURE THE END OF THE CHILIAN AFFAIR. From "Judge." Judge was entitled, " The Champion Masher of the Uni- verse." This represents Hawaii under the form of a dusky but comely damsel, being borne off complacently by a gorgeously attired Uncle Sam, while his discomfited rivals are looking on in chagrin and disgust. These rivals are England, under the form of John Bull; France, shown under the features of President Sadi Carnot; Germany, the Em- peror William; and Italy, King Humbert. This cartoon was drawn by Gillam. The Toronto Grip saw the matter in quite a different aspect. Hawaii, a badly frightened savage, is bound to a stake, while Uncle Sam, in the guise of a missionary, is whetting the knife of annexation, preparing to give him the conp-de- grace, and at the same time waving off John Bull, who holds his knife, " Protectorate," with similar intent. " Hold up," says Hawaii, " didn't you say it was wrong to eat man?" and Uncle Sam rejoins benevolently, "Yes — CENTURY IN CARICATURE 323 but — well, circumstances alter cases, and the interests of civilization and commerce, you know You keep off, John; he's my meat." The suggestion that England was merely waiting for a good excuse to step in and take posses- sion of Hawaii, while the American administration and Congress were trying to reach an understanding, was eagerly seized upon by other journals as well as Grip, especially in Germany. The Berlin Ulk portrayed Queen Liliuokalani, armed with a broom, angrily sweeping Uncle Sam from his foothold in Honolulu, while John Bull, firmly established on two of the smaller islands, " laughs to his heart's content," so the legend runs, " but the Yankee is mad with rage." In similar spirit the Kladderadatsch depicts John Bull and Uncle Sam as " Two Good Old Friends," trying to " balance their interests in the Pacific Ocean." With clasped hands the two rivals are see-sawing backwards and forwards, each striving to retain a precarious foothold, as they straddle the Pacific from Samoa to Hawaii, and each quite oblivious of the dis- comfort of the squirming little natives that they are crushing under heel. The fiasco of Mr. Cleveland's attempt to restore Queen Liliuokalani to her throne was hit off in Judge by a cartoon portraying him as Don Quixote, physically much the worse for wear, as a result of his latest tilt at the Hawaiian wind- mill. The knight's spirit, however, is unbroken, and he is receiving philosophically the well-meant consolation of Sancho Panza Gresham. Another cartoon of sterling literary flavor is that represent- ing Mr. McKinley as a political Tarn o' Shanter, which appeared during the exciting election of 1896. The countenance of Tarn in this cartoon shows none of the anxiety and mental perturbation of the hero of Burns' poems. You < t <» $ CENTURY IN CARICATURE 325 DON QUIXOTE BRYAN MEETS DISASTER IN HIS ENCOUNTER WITH THE FULL DINNER PAIL. By Victor Gillam in "Judge." can see that he has full confidence in his good mare, " Na- tional Credit," and is perfectly convinced that she will carry him unscathed over the road to Good Times, Prosperity, and Protection. The carlins have been close at his mare's heels, however, and as he passes the bridge over which they dare OUTING OF THE ANARCHISTS. CENTURY IN CARICATURE 327 not cross, the foremost of his pursuers has caught and pulled away as a trophy the tail of the steed. The tail, however, is something with which he can well part, for it typifies four years of business depression. The leaders of the pursuing carlins are Free Trade, Anarchy, Sectionalism, and Popoc- racy. Mr. Bryan's appeal to the farmer in 1896 was hit off by Hamilton in a powerful, but exceedingly blasphemous, car- TO TH-E DEATH. toon entitled " The Temptation." Bryan in the form of a huge angel of darkness has taken the farmer to the top of a high mountain to show him the riches of the world. As far as the eye can see stretch oceans and cities and hills and rivers and mountains of silver. It is a great pity that so grim and 328 CENTURY IN CARICATURE powerful a cartoon should have been marred by that display of bad taste which has been too frequent in the history of caricature. The caricature produced by the campaign between Mr. McKinley and Mr. Bryan in 1900 offers few, if any, cartoons more admirable than that by Mr. Victor Gillam, representing Don Quixote Bryan meeting disaster in his fight against the full dinner pail. This cartoon has that literary flavor which has been too much lacking in American caricature, and which raises this particular cartoon far above the average in the same school. The idea, of course, is based on Don Quixote's disastrous encounter with the windmill, which that poor crack- brained gentleman took to be a giant. The body of the windmill is a huge dinner pail and its arms are a crossed knife CENTURY IN CARICATURE 329 and fork. Don Quixote, incased in armor from head to foot, and mounted on the Democratic donkey with free silver for a saddle, has tilted against the solid structure with disastrous results. His lance is shattered, and he and his " WE ARE THE PEOPLE." faithful steed lie prostrate and discomfited on opposite sides of the road. The Sancho Panza needed to complete the picture appears under the familiar features of Mr. Richard Croker, who, leading the Tammany Tiger by a rope, is hurrying to his master's assistance. In the distance may be seen the White House, but the road in that direction is com- pletely barred by the stanch windmill that has so success- fully resisted the mad knight's onslaught. CHAPTER XXXI THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR THE pent-up feeling throughout the United States, which reached a dangerous degree of tension during the weeks preceding the declaration of war against Spain, was forcibly symbolized in the Minneapolis Herald. The dome of the National Capitol is portrayed, surmounted by a " Congressional safety-valve." McKinley, clinging to the cupola, is anxiously listening to the roar of the imprisoned steam, which is escaping in vast " war clouds," in spite of all the efforts of Speaker Reed, who is freely perspiring in his effort to hold down the valve. One of those cartoons which are not to be forgotten in a day or a week or a month; one which stirs the blood and rouses the mind to a new patriotism even when seen years after the events which inspired it, is Victor Gillam's " Be Careful ! It's Loaded ! " which appeared a few weeks before the outbreak of the Spanish-American War and which we deem worthy of being ranked among the twenty-five or thirty great cartoons which the nineteenth century has produced. To realize to-day its full force and meaning one has to recall the peculiar tension under which the American people were laboring during the months of February, March, and April, 1898. The Maine had been destroyed in Havana Harbor, and although, now that anger has died down, we can no lon- ger cling implacably to the belief, which was then everywhere expressed, that it was an act emanating from the Spanish Government, at the time it was too much for our over- 330 Q w < £ CENTURY IN CARICATURE 333 wrought nerves; the condition of Cuba was growing every day more deplorable, and everyone felt that the inevitable conflict was hourly at hand. In the picture American patriotism is symbolized by a huge cannon. A diminutive Spaniard has climbed to the top of a mast of a Spanish vessel and monkey-like is shaking his fist down the muzzle. Uncle Sam, standing by the gun and realizing the Spaniard's im- Speaker Reed to McKinley — " You've got to bank the fire some way or other: I can't hold in this steam much longer." Minneapolis " Tribune." minent peril calls out, excitedly, "Be Careful! It's Loaded! " a warning to which the latter seems little inclined to pay any attention. In its very simplicity this cartoon dif- fers greatly from most of those of the school of Puck and Judge. There is none of that infinite variety of detail which makes an elaborate study necessary in order to arrive at a full comprehension of the meaning of a cartoon. " Be careful! It's Loaded ! " like the most striking English and French car- toons, may be understood at a glance. 334 CENTURY IN CARICATURE A cartoon like Grant E. Hamilton's " The Latest War Bulletin " we find amusing at the present time. We did not THE LATEST WAR BULLETIN. By Hamilton in "Judge." find it so a little over five years ago. This latest war bulletin, printed in asbestos, is supposed to have been just received from the infernal regions. His Satanic majesty, with a sar- donic grin upon his face, has just composed it to his own entire satisfaction. Marked up on the burning furnace of Hades it reads: "Only Spanish will be spoken here until further notice — P. S. Guests will please leave their crowns and Spanish 4's in charge of the night clerk." Another equally hideous cartoon by Hamilton is that entitled " The Spanish Brute Adds Mutilation to Murder." It shows a hideous ape-like monster representing Spain, one blood-dripping hand smearing the tombstones erected to the sailors of the Maine and the other clutching a reeking knife. All about him under the tropical trees are the bodies of his £- P. u u e i toe jH '5 5.5"" + j Y ^^ S* .2 s ac o i-i 3 - a)-; H :^> :- Oj o ^ r/i ~ £ - '< CENTURY IN CARICATURE 337 mutilated victims. The expression of the monster's coun- tenance is a lesson in national prejudice. It shows how far a well-balanced nation may go in moments of bitterness and anger. One of the most striking and amusing of all the cartoons evoked by the results of the Spanish-American War ap- peared in Punch at a time when our departure from our THE SPANISH BRUTE— ADDS MUTILATION TO MURDER. By Hamilton in "Judge." traditional policy began to cause comment in Europe. There are two figures, that of Dame Europa and that of Uncie Sam. Dame Europa is a lady of frigid aspect, with arms folded, and who has drawn herself up to full height as she gazes scornfully at the complacent and unruffled Uncle Sam. " To whom do I owe the honor of this intrusion? " she asks icily. " Marm, my name is Uncle Sam." " Any relation of the late Colonel Monroe?" is the scathing retort. 338 CENTURY IN CARICATURE No less interesting than the American cartoons of the Spanish War are those contributed by Spain herself, although in the light of subsequent events they are chiefly amusing for their overweening confidence and braggadocio insolence. Among the more extravagant flights of Spanish imagination, which later news turned into absurdities, may be cited " Dewey's Situation," in which the victor of Manila is represented as a disconsolate rat, caught in the Philippine mouse-trap; " Cervera bottles up Schley," a situation which the sober facts of history afterwards reversed; and " McKin- ley's Condition," in which the President is represented as swathed in bandages, and suffering severely from apocryphal injuries received at Porto Rico and Cienfuegos. All of these cartoons appeared at different times in the Madrid Don Quijcte, which did not always keep on this level of empty boasting, but occasionally produced some really clever caricature. A regular feature of the Spanish War cartoons was the American Hog as a symbol of theUnited States, and some of the applications of this idea in the Don Ouijote were distinctly amusing. For instance, in reference to Spain's accusation that an American ship flew the Spanish flag at Guantanamo in order to approach near enough to cut the cable, America is shown as a fat hog, triumphantly strutting along on its hind legs and ostentatiously waving the Spanish colors. Again, the Sampson-Schley controversy is hit off in a picture showing Sampson surrounded by a number of naval " hogs," each armed with gigantic shears and bent upon obtaining the Admiral's scalp. Still another cartoon seeks to explain the " real purpose " in getting Cuba away from Spain. A drove of pigs have clustered around a huge barrel of Cuban molasses and are eagerly sucking the contents through tubes. Of a more dignified type are the caricatures "3 to 2 R O 10 S* U ' ci cu a o R tU ^ ^ O O I CENTURY IN CARICATURE 341 representing Spain as a beautiful and haughty Seriorita, boldly showing how she keeps beneath her garter " a knife for the American pigs " ; or pointing to her shoe on which Cuba serves as a buckle, and arrogantly challenging a diminutive McKinley, — " you can't unbuckle that shoe! " CHAPTER XXXII THE BOER WAR AND THE DREYFUS CASE A CARTOON which was a forerunner of the Trans- vaal War and the railway between Capetown and Cairo was that entitled " The Rhodes Colossus," which appeared in Punch December 10, 1892. It was by the hand of Linley Sambourne. It shows a colossal figure of Cecil ...l.i V.- THE RHODES COLOSSUS STHIDINC FROM CAfE TOWN TO CAlF. By Linley Sambourne. Rhodes standing on a map of Africa with one foot planted in Egypt and the other at the Cape. In his hands he holds a line suggesting the telegraph wire connecting the two places. 342 ^> 344 CENTURY IN CARICATURE Although the German Government refused to interfere in the protracted struggle in the Transvaal, the sympathy of Germany with the Boers found expression in a host of car- toons, bitterly inveighing against British aggression. Thoroughly characteristic is one which appeared in the Lustige Blatter entitled "English World-Kingdom; or, Bloody Cartography." A grossly distorted caricature of THE ENGLISH WORLD KINGDOM, OR BLOODY ' CARTOGRAPHY. From the " Lustige Blatter." Victoria is standing before a map of the world, and dipping her pen in a cup of blood, held for her by an army officer. Chamberlain, at her elbow, is explaining that " the lowest corner down yonder, must be painted red!" Another of the Lustige Blatter' 's grim cartoons, alluding to the terrible price in human life that England paid for her ultimate vic- tory in the Transvaal, depicts Britannia, as Lady Macbeth, CENTURY IN CARICATURE 345 vainly trying to wash the stain from her bloody hands. " Out, damned spot! " In lighter vein is the cartoon which is here reproduced from the Wiener Humoristische Blatter showing " Oom Paul at His Favorite Sport." Kruger, BRITANNIA AS LADY MACBETH TRYING TO WASH AWAY THE STAINS OF THE BOER WAR. From the " Lustige Blatter." rakishly arrayed in tennis garb, is extracting infinite enjoy- ment from the congenial exercise of volleying English soldiers, dressed up as shuttlecocks, over the " Transvaal net " into the watery ditch beyond. Judged by the manner it was mirrored in the caricature of Europe and America, the Dreyfus Case assumed the magni- tude of a great war or a crisis in national existence. During the last two or three years that the degraded Captain of Artillery was a prisoner at Devil's Island, when Zola was furiously accusing, and the General Staff was talking about THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. Minneapolis "Journal." CENTURY IN CARICATURE 347 OOM PAUL S FAVORITE PASTIME. From the " Wiener Humoristische Blatter.'' " the Honor of the Army," and France was divided into two angry camps, one had only to glance at the current cartoons to realize that Dreyfus was, as the late G. W. Steevens called him, " the most famous man in the world." For a time the great personages of the earth were relegated to the back- ground. The monarchs and statesmen of Europe were of interest and importance only so far as their careers affected that of the formerly obscure Jewish officer. Perhaps the most famous of all the admirable cartoons dealing with I' Affaire was the " Design for a New French Bastile," which was of German origin and which caused the paper publishing it to be excluded from French territory. It appeared just after Colonel Henry had cut his throat with a razor in his cell in the Fortress of Vincennes, when suspicions of collusion were openly expressed, and some went so far as to hint that the prisoner's death might be a case of murder and not suicide. The " Design for a New French Bastile " CENTURY IN CARICATURE 349 showed a formidable fortress on the lines of the famous prison destroyed in the French Revolution with a row of the special cells beneath. In one of these cells a loaded revolver was placed conspicuously on the chair; in the next was seen a sharpened razor; from a stout bar in a third cell dangled a convenient noose. The inference was obvious, and the fact that the cells were labeled " for Picquart," " for Zola," MR. RHODES— THE NAPOLEON OF SOUTH AFRICA. From the Westminster " Budget" {London). " for Labori " and the other defenders of Dreyfus gave the cartoon an added and sinister significance. In caricature the Dreyfus case was a battle between a small number of Anti- Dreyfussard artists on the one hand, and the Dreyfus press with all the cartoonists of Europe and the United States as its allies on the other. The opportunity to exalt the prisoner, to hold him up as a martyr, to interpret pictorially the spirit 350 CENTURY IN CARICATURE of Zola's ringing " la verite est en marche, et rien ne I'arre- tera! " offered a vast field for dramatic caricature. On the other hand the cartoon against Dreyfus and his defenders was FIRE Froi7i " Psst " (Paris essentially negative, and the wonder is that the rout of the minority was not greater — it should have been a veritable " sauve qui pent." The spirit of anti-Dreyfussard caricature was Anti- Semitism. One of the most striking of the cartoons on this THE LAST PHASE OF THE DREYFUS CASE. Justice takes Dreyfus into her car. From " Amste?-dammer." side purported to contrast France before 1789 and France at the end of the Nineteenth Century. In the first picture we CENTURY IN CARICATURE 35i . f 1 mr TOWARD FREEDOM. Madame la Republique—" Welcome, M. Le Cap- itaine. Let me hope that I may soon return you your sword." , , From " Punch " (.London) were shown a peasant toiling laboriously along a furrow in the ground, bearing on his shoulders a beribboned and be- plumed aristocrat of the old regime, whose thighs grip the neck of the man below with the tenacity of the Old Man of the Sea. That was France before the Revolution came with its bloody lesson. In the picture showing France at the end of the Nineteenth Century there was the same peasant toiling along at the bottom, but the burden under which he tottered was fivefold. Above him was the petty merchant, who in turn carried on his shoulders the lawyer, and so on until rid- ing along, arrogantly and ostentatiously, at the top was the figure of the foreign-born Jew, secure through the posses- sion of his tainted millions. 352 CENTURY IN CARICATURE The dangerous straits through which the Waldeck- Rous- seau ministry was obliged to pass were hit off in a cartoon appearing in the Humor is tische Blatter of Berlin, entitled " Between Scylla and Charybdis." On one side of the nar- row waterway a treacherous rock shows the yawning jaws of the Army. On the other side, equally hideous and threaten- ing, gleam the sharpened teeth of the face typifying the r A DUTCH VIEW. The present condition of the French general staff. From " Amstef-dammer.' 1 '' Dreyfus Party. Waldeck-Rousseau, appreciating the choppi- ness of the sea and the dangerous rocks, calls to his gallant crew: " Forward, dear friends, look neither to the right nor to the left, and we will win through at last." Many of the cartoons dealing with the Dreyfus case were mainly symbolic in their nature; full of figures of " Justice with her Scales," CENTURY IN CARICATURE 353 " Justice Blindfolded and with Unsheathed Sword," " Swords of Damocles " and so on. A Dutch cartoon in Amsterdammer, entitled " The Last Phase of the Dreyfus Case," showed Justice taking the unfortunate captain into her car. The horses drawing the car were led by Scheurer- Kestner and Zola, while following the chariot, to which they are linked by ignominious chains, were the discredited Chiefs of the Army. The same paper humorously summed up the con- BETWEEN SCYI.LA AND CHARYBDIS. Waldeck-Rousseau— " Forward, dear friends, look neither to the right nor the left, and we will win through at last." From " Hamoristische Blatter " (Berlhi). dition of the French General Staff in a picture showing a fall- ing house of which the occupants, pulling at cross-purposes, were accelerating the downfall. The decision upon Revision and the dispatching of the Spax to Cayenne to bring Dreyfus back to France was commemorated in London Punch in a dignified cartoon called " Toward Freedom." Madame la Republique greeted Dreyfus: "Welcome, M. le Capitaine. 354 CENTURY IN CARICATURE Let me hope I may soon return you your sword." The same phase of the case was more maliciously interpreted by Lustige Blatter of Berlin in a cartoon entitled " At Devil's Island," which showed the Master of the Island studying grinningly a number of officers whom he held in the hollow of his hand, and saying: " They take away one captain from me: but look here, a whole handful of generals! Oh, after all, the arrangement is not so bad." AT DEVIL'S ISLAND. The Master of the Island.— "They take away one captain from me; but look here, a whole handful of generals! Oh, after all, the arrangement is not so bad." From " Lustige Blatter " {Berlin'). CHAPTER XXXIII THE MEN OF TO-DAY WITH the Spanish-American War, the Affaire Dreyfus in France, and England's long strug- gle for supremacy in the Transvaal, the period arbitrarily chosen as the scope of this book comes to a bril- liant and dramatic close. But the cartoonist's work is never done. Nimble pencils are still busy, as in the days of Row- landson and Gillray, in recording and in influencing the trend of history. And although, now and again during the past century, there has been some individual cartoonist whose work has stood out more boldly and prominently than the work of any one of our contemporaries in Europe or in this country stands out to-day, there has never been a time in the whole history of comic art when Caricature has held such sway and maintained such dignity, and has enlisted in her service so many workers of the first talent and rank. With- out alluding to the men of France and England, what an array it is that contemporary American caricature presents ! C. G. Bush of the New York World, Charles Nelan of the New York Herald, Frederick Burr Opper and Homer Davenport of the New York American and Journal, Mahoney of the Washington Star, Bradley of the Chicago Evening News, May of the Detroit Journal, " Bart " of the Minneapolis Journal, Mayfield of the New Orleans Times- Democrat, Victor Gillam, carrying on the traditions of his brother — Rogers, Walker, Hedrick, Bowman, McCutcheon, Lambdin, Wallace, Leipziger, Berryman, Holme, Barthole- 355 C. G. BUSH OF "THE WORLD." THE DEAN OF ACTIVE AMERICAN CARTOONISTS. CENTURY IN CARICATURE 357 mew, Carter, Steele, Powers, Barritt — and to name these men does not nearly exhaust the list of those artists whose clever work has amused and unconsciously influenced hundreds of thousands of thinking American men and women. There are interest and significance in the fact that a majority of the ablest caricaturists of to-day are devoting their talents almost exclusively to the daily press. It is an exacting sort of work, exhaustive both physically and mentally. The mere WILLIE AND HIS PAPA. -What on earth ar: you doing in there. Willie?" ■Teddy put me in. He saya it's the be3t place for i idea of producing a single daily cartoon, week in and week out, — thirty cartoons a month, three hundred and sixty-five cartoons a year, with the regularity of a machine, — is m itself appalling. And yet a steadily growing number of artists are turning to this class of work, and one reason for this is that they realize that through the medium of the daily press their influence is more far-reaching than it possibly can be in the 358 CENTURY IN CARICATURE pages of the comic weeklies, and that at the same time the exigencies of journalism allow more scope for individuality than do the carefully planned cartoons of papers like Puck or Judge. Speed and originality are the two prime requisites of the successful newspaper cartoon of to-day, a maximum of thought expressed in a minimum of lines, apposite, clear- cut, and incisive, like a well-written editorial. Indeed, our leading cartoonists regard their art as simply another and especially telling medium for giving expression to editorial opinion. Mr. Bush, " the dean of American caricaturists," may be said to have spoken for them all when he said, in a recent interview, that he looks upon a cartoon as an editorial pure and simple. " To be a success it should point a moral. Exaggeration and a keen sense of humor are only adjuncts of the cartoonist, for he must deal with real people. He must also be a student. I am obliged not only to use my pencil, but to study hard, and read everything I can lay my hands on. The features of Roosevelt, Bryan, Hanna, and Croker may be familiar to me, but I must know T what these men are doing. I must also know what the masses behind these popular characters think and believe." Another direct result of the influence of journalism upon caricature, in addition to that of compelling the artist to keep in closer touch than ever before with contemporary history, is the growing popularity of the series method — a method which dates back to the Macaire of Philipon and the Mayeux of Travies, and which consists in portraying day by day the same more or less grotesque types, ever undergoing some new and absurd adventure. It is a method which suits the needs of artist and public alike. To the former, his growing familiarity with every line and detail of the features HOMER DAVENPORT, OF THE " NEW YORK AMERICAN AND JOURNAL. 360 CENTURY IN CARICATURE and forms of his pictorial puppets minimizes his daily task, while the public, even that part of the public which is opposed to comic art in general, or is out of sympathy with the polit- ical attitude of a certain series in particular, finds itself gradu- ally becoming familiar with the series, through fugitive and unexpected glimpses, and ends by following the series with amusement and interest and a growing curiosity as to what new and absurd complications the artist will next intro- duce. This employment of the series idea is as successful in social as political satire. Mr. Outcault's " Yel- low Kid " and " Buster Brown," Mr. Opper's " Happy Hooligan " and " Alphonse and Gaston," Gene Carr's " Lady Bountiful," and Carl Schultze's " Foxy Grandpa " are types that have won friends throughout the breadth of the continent. In the domain of strictly political caricature, however, there is no series that has attracted more attention than Homer Davenport's familiar conception of the Trusts, symbolized as a bulky, overgrown, uncouth figure, a primor- dial giant from the Stone Age. And since there have been a number of apocryphal stories regarding the source of Mr. Davenport's inspiration, it will not be without interest to print the artist's own statement. " As a matter of fact," he says, " I got the idea in St. Mark's Square in Venice. Seeing a flock of pigeons flying about in that neighborhood I imme- diately, with my love of birds and beasts, determined by fair means or foul to purloin a pair. I watched them fly hither and thither, and in following them came across a statue of Samson throwing some man or other — I forget his name — to the ground. The abnormal size of the muscles of the figure struck me at once, and turning round to my wife, who was with me, I said with a sudden inspired thought, ' The Trusts!'" DAVENPORT'S CONCEPTION OF THE TRUSTS. 362 CENTURY IN CARICATURE Of equal importance are the various series in lighter vein through which Mr. Opper aims to lead people to the same way of thinking politically as the paper which he serves. Long years of labor and constant production do not seem to have in any way drained his power of invention, for no sooner has one series done its work, and before the public has be- come sated with it, than an entirely new line of cartoons is introduced. Mr. Opper, as well as Mr. Davenport, has had his fling at and drawn his figure of the Trusts, and to place the two figures side by side is to contrast the methods and work of the men. Mr. Opper's purpose seems to be, first of all, to excite your mirth, and consequently he never fails to produce a certain effect. When you take up one of his car- toons in which the various stout, sturdy, and well-fed gentle- men typifying the different Trusts are engaged in some pleas- ant game the object of which is the robbing, or abusing of the pitiable, dwarfish figure representative of the Common People, your first impulse is a desire to laugh at the ludicrous contrast. It is only afterwards that you begin to think se- riously how badly the abject little victim is being treated, and what a claim he has upon your sympathy and indignation. In those series which are designed entirely along party lines, such as " Willie and his Papa," this method is even more effective, since it begins by disarming party opposition. Of such men, and the younger draughtsmen of to-day, much more might be written with sympathetic understanding and enthusiasm. But most of them belong rather to the century that has just begun rather than that which has lately closed, and a hundred years from now, whoever attempts to do for the twentieth century a service analogous to that which has here been undertaken for the nineteenth, will find an infinitely ampler and richer store of material, thanks to CENTURY IN CARICATURE 363 this group of younger satirists in the full flood of their en- thusiasm, who are valiantly carrying on the traditions of the men of the past — of Leech and Tenniel, of Daumier, and Philipon, and Cham and Andre Gill, of Nast and Keppler and Gillam, and who have already begun to record with trenchant pencil the events that are ushering in the dawn of the new century. 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