Part 14 (1/2)

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.