The History of the Nineteenth Century in Caricature Part 14

Theater. The _Pall Mall Budget_ showed the Queen and the Heir Apparent enjoying a quiet evening over the card table at home. The Prince is saying: "Ah, well! I must give up baccarat and take to cribbage with mamma."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Christianity and the Bible in China.

_An exact copy of a Chinese native cartoon. Reproduced in the San Francisco "Wasp," Jan. 2, 1982._]

_Moons.h.i.+ne_, in a cartoon ent.i.tled "Aren't they Rather 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 caricature of the scandal may be understood from the cartoon which we reproduce from _Puck_. This cartoon speaks for itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: j.a.pan--"Does it hurt up There?"

_From "Kladderadatsch."_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Business at the Death-Bed--Uncle Sam as Undertaker.

_From "Kladderadatsch" (Berlin)._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Start for the China Cup.

_From "Moons.h.i.+ne" (London)._]

The Emperor William and his chancellors inspired _La Silhouette_, of Paris, to a very felicitous cartoon ent.i.tled "William Bluebeard."

William is warning Hohenlohe and pointing to a closet in which are hanging the bodies of Bismarck and Caprivi, robed in feminine apparel.

"My first two wives are dead," says Bluebeard. "Take care, Hohenlohe, lest the same fate overtake you!"

The increase in European armament in 1892 suggested to Tenniel the idea of the cartoon "The Road to Ruin," which appeared November 5 of that year. It shows the figures of two armed hors.e.m.e.n, France and Germany, each burdened with armies of four million men, riding along "The Road to Ruin." Their steeds, weighed down by the burdens they bear, are faltering in their strides. A cartoon published shortly afterwards in the London _Fun_ shows the figure of Peace welcoming the emperors of Germany and Austria, and urging them hospitably to lay aside their sword-belts. "Thanks, Madam," rejoins Kaiser Wilhelm, "but we would rather retain them--in your behalf!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tableau.

End of the Chinese-j.a.panese War.

_From Toronto "Grip."_]

The brief war between China and j.a.pan was necessarily of a nature to suggest cartoons of infinite variety. It was the quick, aggressive bantam against a huge but unwieldy opponent, and one of the earliest cartoons in _Punch_ utilized this idea in "The Corean c.o.c.k Fight." The big and clumsy Shanghai is warily watching his diminutive foe, while the Russian bear, contentedly squatting in the background, is saying softly to himself: "Hi! whichever wins, I see my way to a dinner."

Every feature of Chinese life offered something to the caricaturists.

For instance, in a cartoon ent.i.tled "The First Installment," London _Fun_ shows the j.a.p slas.h.i.+ng off the Chinaman's pigtail. Now this idea of the pigtail in one form or another was carried through to the end of the war. For example the Berlin _Ulk_ offers a simple solution of the whole controversy in a picture ent.i.tled "How the Northern Alexander Might Cut the Corean Knot." China and j.a.pan, with their pigtails hopelessly tangled in a knot labeled "Corea," are tugging desperately in opposite directions, while Russia, knife in one hand and scissors in the other, is preparing to cut off both pigtails close to the heads of his two victims.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Chinese Exclusion Act.

From The San Francisco "Wasp."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great Republican Circus.

This is considered by Mr. Opper as one of his most effective political cartoons.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: To the Rescue!]

_Punch_ characteristically represented the contending nations as two boys engaged in a street fight, while the various powers of Europe are looking on. John Chinaman has obviously had very much the worst of the fray; his features are battered; he is on the ground, and bawling l.u.s.tily, "Boo-hoo! he hurtee me welly much! No peacey man come stoppy him!" The end of the war was commemorated by Toronto _Grip_ in a tableau showing a huge Chinaman on his knees, while a little j.a.p is standing on top of the Chinaman's head toying with the defeated man's pigtail. _Kladderadatsch_, of Berlin, printed a very amusing and characteristic cartoon when the war was at an end: "Business at the death-bed--Uncle Sam as Undertaker." This pictorial skit alludes to the proposition from the United States that China pay her war indemnity to j.a.pan in silver. It shows a stricken Chinaman tucked in a ludicrous bed and about to breathe his last. Uncle Sam, as an enterprising undertaker, has thrust his way in and insists on showing the dying man his handsome new style of coffin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mr. Gladstone in the Valley.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Boulanger Excitement.

The Noisy Boy in the European Lodging House.

_From "Judge."_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Yes, Citizens, since the Disarmament This has been made into a Telescope. Fortunately it was not a Muzzle-loader, so they have been able to put a Lens at both Ends."

_A French cartoon aimed at the Peace Conference._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Fixture.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Group of modern French Caricaturists.]

Still another clever cartoon in which the _Kladderadatsch_ summed up the situation at the close of the war shows a map of the eastern hemisphere, distorted into a likeness of a much-perturbed lady, the British Isles forming her coiffure, Europe her arms and body, and Asia the flowing drapery of her skirts. j.a.pan, saw in hand, has just completed the amputation of one of her feet--Formosa--and has the other--Corea--half sawn off. "Does it hurt you up there?" he is asking, gazing up at the European portion of his victim. The same periodical a few months later forcibly called attention to the fact that while France and Russia were both profiting by the outcome of the war, Germany was likely to go away empty-handed. It is ent.i.tled "The Part.i.tion of the Earth: an Epilogue to the Chinese Loan." China, represented as a fat, overgrown mandarin, squatting comfortably on his throne, serene in the consciousness that his financial difficulties are adjusted for the time being, is explaining the situation to Prince Hohenlohe, who is waiting, basket in hand, for a share of the spoils.

On one side Russia is bearing off a toy engine and train of cars, labeled "Manchuria," and on the other France is contentedly jingling the keys to a number of Chinese seaports. "The world has been given away," China is saying; "Kw.a.n.gtung, Kw.a.n.gsi, and Yunnan are no longer mine. But if you will live in my celestial kingdom you need not feel any embarra.s.sment; your uselessness has charmed us immensely."

The Boulanger excitement, which so roused France until the bubble was effectually p.r.i.c.ked by the lawyer Floquet's fencing sword, was satirized by _Judge_ in a cartoon ent.i.tled "The Noisy Boy in the European Lodging House." The scene is a huge dormitory in which the various European powers have just settled down in their separate beds for a quiet night's rest when Boulanger, with a paper cap on his head, comes marching through, loudly beating a drum. In an instant all is turmoil. King Humbert of Italy is shown in the act of hurling his royal boot at the offending intruder. The Czar of Russia has opened his eyes and his features are distorted with wrath. Bismarck is shaking his iron fist. The Emperor of Austria is getting out of bed, apparently with the intention of inflicting dire punishment on the interrupter of his slumbers. Even the Sultan of Turkey, long accustomed to disturbances from all quarters, has joined in the popular outcry. The lodgers with one voice are shouting, "Drat that Boy! Why doesn't he let us have some rest?"

The old allegorical ideal of Christian pa.s.sing through the dangers of the Valley of the Shadow of Death in Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress,"

which has been appearing in caricature every now and then since Gillray used it against Napoleon, was employed by Tenniel in a cartoon of Mr. Gladstone and Home Rule published in _Punch_, April 15, 1893.

The old warrior, sword in hand, is making his way slowly along the narrow and perilous wall of Home Rule. On either side are the bogs of disaster, suggestive of his fate in case his foot should slip.

The Panama scandals in France and the ensuing revelations of general political trickery suggested one of Sambourne's best cartoons, that depicting France descending into the maelstrom of corruption. This cartoon appeared in the beginning of 1893. It shows France in the figure of a woman going supinely over the rapids, to be hurled into the whirlpool below.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Anglo-French War Barometer.

Fashoda!!! Fashoda!! FASHODA! Fashoda.

_From "Kladderadatsch" (Berlin)._]

British feeling on the Fashoda affair was summed up by Tenniel in two cartoons which appeared in October and November, in 1898. The first of these called "Quit-Pro Quo?" was marked by a vindictive bitterness which appeared rather out of place in the _Punch_ of the last quarter of the century. But it must be remembered that for a brief time feeling ran very high in both countries over the affair. In this cartoon France is represented as an organ-grinder who persists in grinding out the obnoxious Fashoda tune to the intense annoyance of the British householder. The second cartoon represents the Sphinx with the head of John Bull. John Bull is grimly winking his left eye, to signify that he regards himself very much of a "fixture" in Egypt.

CHAPTER x.x.x

AMERICAN PARTIES AND PLATFORMS

The dangerous condition in which the United States found itself about the time we began the building of our new and greater navy was depicted in _Judge_ by the cartoon ent.i.tled, "Rip Van Winkle Awakes at Last." It shows a white-bearded, white-haired Uncle Sam seated on a rock about which the tide is rapidly rising, looking round at the great modern armaments of England and France and Germany and Italy, and murmuring, as he thinks of his own antiquated wooden s.h.i.+ps of war and brick forts, "Why, I'm twenty years behind the age." In his old hat, with the broken crown, are the feathers of Farragut, Perry, Paul Jones, and Lawrence, but these alone are not enough, nor will even the "Spirit of '76," which hovers over him in the shape of an eagle, quite suffice. He has his musket of 1812 and his muzzle-loading gun of 1864, but in the background are those huge cannon of European foes and above them is the gaunt, grim figure of a helmeted Death. A little more and it would have been too late. Now there is yet time. Rip Van Winkle awakes at last.

An interesting variant upon the old type of "Presidential Steeplechase" cartoons appeared in _Puck_ during the summer of 1892, after the Republican convention at Minneapolis and the Democratic convention at Chicago had respectively nominated Mr. Harrison and Mr.

Cleveland. The cartoon is ent.i.tled "They're Off!" and is drawn with admirable spirit. The scene is a Roman amphitheater, and the two Presidential candidates, in the guise of charioteers, are guiding their mettlesome steeds in a mad gallop around the arena. Mr.

Cleveland's horses, "Tariff Reform" and "Economy," are running steadily, and seem to be slowly forging to the front, while those of Mr. Harrison, "High Protection" and "Force Bill," are not pulling well together, and with ears pointed forward, look as though they might at any moment become unmanageable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rip Van Winkle wakes at last.