Part 5 (1/2)

Thereafter _Punch_ lost his supreme interest in the great Civil War. He made no allusions to Gettysburg or to Vicksburg. The ”neutral hope” was painfully dampened by Northern triumphs. His commercial sympathy was all with the losing side. The wish was father to the not very neutral thought that the negro might prove the undoing of his Northern allies.

On August 15 appeared a cartoon ent.i.tled ”Brutus and Caesar, from the American Edition of Shakespeare.” To the tent of Brutus (Lincoln) enters at night the ghost of Caesar, a black spectre. This colloquy occurs:--

Brutus--Wall, now, do tell! Who's you?

Caesar--I am dy ebil genius, ma.s.sa LINKING. Dis child am awful Inimpressional.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BLACK CONSCRIPTION.

”WHEN BLACK MEETS BLACK THEN COMES THE END (?) OF WAR.”]

In October appeared a cartoon headed with unconscious satire, ”John Bull's Neutrality.” John Bull standing with his arms akimbo in the doorway of his shop is glaring defiantly at two bad boys, clad respectively in federal and in confederate uniforms, who slink away before his glance and drop the stones they were preparing to hurl at his windows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN BULL'S NEUTRALITY.

”LOOK HERE, BOYS, I DON'T CARE TWOPENCE FOR YOUR NOISE, BUT IF YOU THROW STONES AT MY WINDOWS, I MUST _THRASH YOU BOTH_.”]

”Look here, boys,” says John, ”I don't care twopence for your noise, but if you throw stones at my windows I must thrash you both.”

The same moral is enforced in the following poem:--

MR. BULL TO HIS AMERICAN BULLIES

Hoy, I say you two there, kicking Up that row before my shop!

Do you want a good sound licking Both? If not, you'd better stop.

Peg away at one another, If you choose such fools to be: But leave me alone; don't bother, Bullyrag and worry me!

Into your confounded quarrel!

Let myself be dragged I'll not By you, fighting for a Merrill Tariff; or your slavery lot.

What I want to do with either Is impartially to trade: Nonsense I will stand from neither Past the bounds of gasconade.

You North, roaring, raving, yelling, Hold your jaw, you b.o.o.by, do; What, d'ye threaten me for selling Arms to South, as well as you?

South, at me don't bawl and bellow, That won't make me take your part; So you just be off, young fellow: Now, you noisy chap, too, start!

To be called names 'tis unpleasant; Words, however, break no bones: I control myself at present; But beware of throwing stones!

I won't have my windows broken, Mind, you brawlers, what I say, See this stick, a striking token; Cut your own, or civil stay.

In a succeeding cartoon _Punch_ called for a separation between the fighters, for now, said he, ”dis-union is strength.” Another cartoon hails the fraternization--reported to have taken place between negroes bearing the flags of the rival armies--with the epigram ”When black meets black then comes the end of war.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS, OR THE MODERN ULYSSES.]

Henry Ward Beecher's visit to England, in the autumn of 1863, is celebrated by a cartoon and by a poem in which due praise is given to the vigor of his oratory and to the excellence of his intentions.

BRITISHER TO BEECHER

Alas! what a pity it is, PARSON BEECHER, That you came not at once when Secession broke out, As ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S Apostle, a preacher Of the Union; a gospel which Englishmen doubt; For that Union, you see, Was a limb of our tree: Its own branches to break themselves off are as free.

Still, BEECHER, if you had been only sent hither, When at first the Palmetto flag flouted the sky, Commissioned foul slavery's faction to wither, And this nation invoke to be Freedom's ally, With your eloquent art You had won England's heart; We were fully disposed towards taking your part.