CHAPTER XXIX

YEARS OF TURBULENCE

In marked contrast to the preceding lengthy period of tranquillity, the closing decade of the nineteenth century witnessed a succession of wars and international crises well calculated to stimulate the pencils of every cartoonist worthy of the name. One has only to recall that to this period belong the conflict between China and Japan, the brief clash between Greece and Turkey, the beginning of our policy of expansion, with the annexation of Hawaii, our own war with Spain, and England's protracted struggle in the Transvaal, to realize how rich in stirring events these few years have been, and what opportunities they offer for dramatic caricature.

A cartoon produced in an earlier chapter, entitled "Waiting," showed General Gordon gazing anxiously across the desert at the mirage which was conjured up by his fevered brain, taking the clouds of the horizon to be the guns of the approaching British army of relief. Early in 1885 the relief expedition started under the command of General Henry Stewart, and on February 7 there was published in _Punch_ the famous cartoon "At Last," showing the meeting between Gordon and the relieving general. This was a famous _Punch_ slip. That meeting never occurred. For on February 5, two days before the appearance of the issue containing the cartoon, Khartoum had been taken by the Mahdi. The following week Tenniel followed up "At Last" with the cartoon "Too Late," which showed the Mahdi and his fanatic following pouring into Khartoum, while stricken Britannia covers her eyes.

The _Times_ challenge to Charles Stewart Parnell was, of course, recorded in the caricature of _Punch_. The "Thunderer," it will be remembered, published letters, which it believed to be genuine, involving Parnell in the murders of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin, in 1882. When these letters were proved to have been forged by Pigot, _Punch_ published a cartoon showing the _Times_ doing penance. Both of these cartoons were by Tenniel. "The Challenge" appeared in the issue of April 30, 1887, and "Penance" almost two years later, March 9, 1889.

A cartoon which marked Tenniel's genius at its height, a cartoon worthy of being ranked with that which depicted the British Lion's vengeance on the Bengal Tiger after the atrocities of the Sepoy rebellion, was his famous "Dropping the Pilot," which was published on March 29, 1890, after William II. of Germany had decided to dispense with the services of the Iron Chancellor. Over the side of the ship of state the young Emperor is leaning complacently looking down on the grim old pilot, who has descended the ladder and is about to step into the boat that is to bear him ashore. The original sketch of this cartoon was finished by Tenniel as a commission from Lord Rosebery, who gave it to Bismarck. The picture is said to have pleased both the Emperor and the Prince.

The baccarat scandal at Tranby Croft and the subsequent trial at which the then Prince of Wales was present as a witness was a rich morsel for the caricaturist in the early summer of 1891. Not only in England, but on the Continent and in this country, the press was full of jibes and banter at the Prince's expense. The German comic paper, _Ulk_, suggested pictorially a new coat-of-arms for his Royal Highness in which various playing cards, dice, and chips were much in evidence. In another issue the same paper gives a German reading from Shakspere in which it censures the Prince in much the same manner that Falstaff censured the wild Harry of Henry IV. The London cartoonists all had their slings with varying good nature. _Fun_ represented the Prince as the Prodigal Son being forgiven by the paternal British nation. Point to this cartoon was given by the fact that the pantomime "L'Enfant Prodigue" was being played at the time in the Prince of Wales' 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."

_Moonshine_, in a cartoon entitled "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.

The Emperor William and his chancellors inspired _La Silhouette_, of Paris, to a very felicitous cartoon entitled "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 horsemen, 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!"

The brief war between China and Japan 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 Cock 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 entitled "The First Installment," London _Fun_ shows the Jap slashing 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 entitled "How the Northern Alexander Might Cut the Corean Knot." China and Japan, 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.

_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 lustily, "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 Jap 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 Japan 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.

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. Japan, 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 entitled "The Partition 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; "Kwangtung, Kwangsi, and Yünnan are no longer mine. But if you will live in my celestial kingdom you need not feel any embarrassment; your uselessness has charmed us immensely."

The Boulanger excitement, which so roused France until the bubble was effectually pricked by the lawyer Floquet's fencing sword, was satirized by _Judge_ in a cartoon entitled "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 passing 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.

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.