# The Strand Magazine/Volume 5/Issue 30/Illustrated Interviews

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Illustrated Interviews
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Illustrated Interviews.
No. XXIII.—MR. HARRY FURNISS.
"Interviewed!"
"My little model."
T is the proud boast of every married man, and more particularly so when his quiver is fairly full, that he presides over the happiest home in the land. But there is a corner of Regent's Park where stands a house whose four walls contain an amount of fun and unadulterated merriment, happiness, and downright pleasure that would want a lot of beating. The fact is that Mr. Harry Furniss is not only a merry man with his pencil. Humour with him may mean a very profitable thing—it unquestionably does; fun and frolic as depicted on paper by "Lika Joko" brings in, as Digby Grant would put it, many "a little cheque." But I venture to think that the clever caricaturist would not have half as many merry ideas running from the mind to the pencil if he sold all his humour outside and forgot to scatter a goodly proportion of it amongst his quartette of children.
I had not been in the house five minutes ​before they made their presence known. I had not been there a quarter of an hour before the discovery was made that they were small but impressive editions of their father. Have you heard of Harry Furniss's little model—"My Little Model"? She is Dorothy, who sits for all the little girls in her father's pictures. A clever, bright young woman of thirteen, with glorious auburn tresses. For two or three years past she has not forgotten to write her father a story, illustrated it herself, and duly presented it on his birthday. "Buzzy," for that is her pet name, is retained as a model at a modest honorarium per sitting. Should she be indisposed, she must find a substitute! Then there is Frank, the eldest, home for his holidays just now from Cheltenham; young Lawrence, who also draws capitally; and little Guy, the youngest, who creeps into the pictures occasionally. "Little guy—or, a fidgety model." Guy is a very fidgety model. "I have drawn him in twenty different moves, when trying to bribe him with a penny to sit!" said Mr. Furniss. And it seemed to me—and one had an excellent opportunity of judging during a too-quickly-passed day spent at Regent's Park—that not a small amount of Mr. Furniss's ​humour was caught from the children. He has brought them up to live a laughing life, he ignores the standing-in-the-corner theory, and believes that a penny discreetly bestowed on a youngster during a troubled moment will teach him a better lesson than a shilling's-worth of stick. It is also evident that the brightness and jollity of the children are inherited, not only from father, but mother as well; and it was easy to discern, from the remarks that fell from the subject of my interview, that the touches of artistic taste to be seen about the place were due to the "best of wives and mothers"—immaculate housewife and capital hostess—Mrs. Furniss. And, as Mr. Furniss himself acknowledges, half the battle of life is overcome for a hard-worked professional man by the possession of a sympathetic and careful wife.
Just run through this budget of letters from father to children. When I arrived at Regent's Park—ten minutes before my time, by-the-bye—Mr. Furniss was out riding, a very favourite excereise with him. "Buzzy" and Frank and Lawrence and Guy brought out their treasured missives. When "Lika Joko" gets a pen or pencil in his hand he can't help caricaturing. These juvenile missives were decorated with sketches in every corner. Here is a particularly merry one. Frank writes from Cheltenham for some fretwork patterns. Patterns are sent by return of post—the whole family is sent in fretwork. Mr. Furniss goes away to Hastings, suffering from overwork. He has to diet himself. Then comes a letter illustrated at the top with a certain gentleman greatly reduced in face and figure through following Dr. Robson Roose's admirable advice. There are scores of them—all neatly and carefully kept with their envelopes in scrap-books.
Some few days afterwards I discovered that Mr. Furniss delights in "illustrating" his letters to others besides his children. My photo was needed by Mr. Furniss for the purpose of making a sketch. I sent him a recent one. He wanted a "profile" too. The "profile" was taken when I was sadly in need of the application of the scissors of the tonsorial artist. I posted the "profile" with a request that perhaps Mr. Furniss would kindly apply his artistic shears and cut off a little of the surplus hair. By return comes an illustrated missive. I am sitting in a barber's chair, cloth round neck; the artist is behind me with the customary weapon, and laying ​low the locks. The whole thing probably only took a minute or two to do, but it is a capital little bit of drawing. It is reproduced at the end of this article.
This quarter of an hour spent with the youngsters over their paternal letters was not lost. It prepared me for the man himself, it gave me the true clue to his character, and when he rushed into the house—riding boots and whip included—it was just the one the children had unanimously realized for me. A jolly, hearty," "give us your hand" sort of individual, somewhat below the medium height, with a face as merry as one of his own pages in Punch. He is restless—he must be always at it. He thinks and talks rapidly: there is no hesitation about him. He gets a happy thought. Out it comes—unique and original in its unvarnished state. He is as good and thorough a specimen of an Englishman as one would meet—frank and straight-spoken, says what he thinks and thinks what he means. An Englishman, notwithstanding the fact that he was born in Ireland, his mother was a Scotchwoman, and he married a lady of Welsh descent! But, then, his father was a Yorkshireman! So much for the man—and much more. Of his talents we will speak later.
We all sat down to lunch, and the children simply did for me what I could not have done for myself. Frank ran his father on funny stories. Then it all came out. Mr. Furniss is an excellent actor—had he not been a caricaturist he must have been a comedian. His powers of imitation are unlimited. He will give you an Irish jarvey one moment and Henry Irving the next, and the children led him on. But it all at once dawned upon Mr. Furniss that it was interfering with the proper play of knife and fork, so we dispensed with the mimicry and went on with the mutton.
"Lika Joko" is suggested at once on entering the hall. Here are a quartette of quaint Japanese heads, which their owner calls his "Fore Fathers!" His Fellowship of the Zoo is typified by pictures of various animals. A fine etching of St. Mark's, at ​Venice, is also noticeable, the only two portraits being a Rembrandt and Maroni's "Tailor."
"I always hold that up as the best portrait ever painted," said Mr. Furniss, as he glances at Maroni's masterpiece.
In the dining-room Landseer, Herkomer, Alma Tadema, and Burton Barber are represented—little Lawrence was the original study for the child in the latter artist's "Bethgelert." Fred Barnard's work is here, and some quaint old original designs on wood by Boyd Haughton are pointed out as curios. Punch is to the front, notably in Du Maurier, by himself, which cost its its possessor thirty guineas; a portrait group of the staff up the river, some delicate water-colours by C. H. Bennett, and a fine bit of work by Mr. Furniss of the jubilee dinner of the threepenny comic at the Ship Hotel, Greenwich. Upstairs the children's portraits, and pictures likely to please the youngsters, reappear. The nursery is full of them, though perhaps the most interesting apartment in this part of the house is the principal bedroom. It is full of the original caricatures of M.P.'s and other notabilities, and the occupant of the bed has Bradlaugh and the Baron de Worms on either side of him, whilst from a corner the piercing eye of Mr. George Lewis is constantly on the watch.
The dining-room. From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
A striking portrait of Mr. F. C. Burnand recalls to Mr. Furniss the first time he sketched him.
"I was making a chalk drawing of him," said the caricaturist. "He sat with his back to me for half-an-hour writing, and suddenly turned round and wanted to know if I had finished! Perceiving a piece of bread for rubbing-out purposes in my hand, he objected to my having lunch there! And finally, when I induced him to turn his head my way and I finished the sketch, he looked at it critically and cried out, 'Splendid likeness, remarkable features, fine head, striking forehead, characteristic eyebrows, splendid likeness; somebody I know, but I can't remember who!' Encouraging, wasn't it?
"But I remembered it. Some years after I gave a dinner at the Garrick Club to the Punch staff and some friends. Burnand sat at the head of a long table. It was understood that there was to be no speaking. Suddenly I saw the editorial eyebrows wriggling. I knew what it meant—Burnand was going to make a speech. I hurriedly got about a dozen sheets of note-paper, and tore them in bits. I jumped up very nervous, produced 'notes'; terrible anxiety on part of diners—suppressed groans. I spoke, got fearfully muddled, constantly losing notes, etc. 'Art amongst the Greeks,' I said—notes; 'yes, your sculptors of Athens were, unquestionably'—notes again. 'And what of it? Punch is a—Punch is a—well, you all know what Punch is!' Then it began to dawn upon them that this was a little lark. lark. So I hurriedly threw notes under the table and suggested that on an occasion like the present it was our duty to first propose the health of the Queen! We did. We did. the Prince of Wales, the Army and Navy, the Reserve Forces, the Bishops and Magistrates. All these were replied to, and Burnand didn't get a chance!"
​ The drawing-room. From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
There are many delightful water-colours in the drawing-room, bronzes and quaint Japanese ivories. The first meet of the "Two Pins Club" at Richmond, June 8th, 1890, gives excellent back views of Sir Charles Russell, F. C. Burnand, Frank Lockwood, Q.C., Linley Sambourne, Chas. Matthews, Q.C., and the caricaturist himself. The "Two Pins" is a riding club named after Dick Turpin and Johnny Gilpin. Works by Goodall and Rowlandson are here, a fine Albert Dürer, and a most ingenious bit of painting by a man who never had a chance to get to the front—he has used his brush with excellent effect on the back of an old band-box. Mary Anderson has written on the back of a photo, "Better late than never," for the picture was a long time coming; of another excellent example photographic work being a large head of Mr. Irving as "Becket," bearing his autograph. In a corner is a queer-looking wax model of Daniel O'Connell addressing the crowd, and amongst a hundred little odds and ends spring flowers are peeping out. Mr. Furniss finds little time now to use his paint-box. The example—an early one, by-the-bye—he has contributed to this apartment is by no means prophetic. It is a trifle in water-colours—a graveyard of a church with countless tombstones! Now, who would associate the caricaturist with tombstones?
The studio. From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
Passing down a glass corridor—from the roof of which the grapes hang in great and luscious clusters in the autumn—you reach ​the studio. It is a big, square room. your eyes round the walls, try to take in its thousand and one quaint treasures. You can see humour in every one of them—merriment oozes out of every single item. Stand before this almost colossal statue of Venus. She of the almost faultless waist and fashion-plate divine rests on a coal-box. Sit down on the sofa. It is the stuffed lid of another receptacle for fuel. Golf is one of the artist's hobbies, and he invariably plays with clergymen—excellent thing for the character. We light our cigars from a capital little match-stand modelled out of a golf-ball, and the next instant "Lika Joko" is juggling with three or four balls. A clever juggler, forsooth. And the battledore and shuttlecock? Excellent exercise. After a long spell of work, the battledore is seized and the shuttlecock bounces up to the glass roof. It went through the other day, hence play has been postponed owing to the numerous engagements of the local glazier. Fencing foils are in a corner; a quaint arrangement of helmets, masks, and huge weapons à la Waterloo suggests "scalping trophies." The china is curious—there is even an empty ginger jar—picked up in country places, of a rare and valuable old-fashioned type. He has the finest collection of old tinsel pictures of the Richard III. and Dick Turpin order in the kingdom, and values an old book full of tinsel patterns of the most exquisite design and workmanship. Old glass pictures are scattered about, "Lord Nelson's Funeral Car," and Joey Grimaldi grins at you from the far corner of the room.
Scalping trophies. From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
All this and much more is characteristic of the humour of the famous caricaturist. We look at "Lika Joko's" skits and laugh; we take a delight in picking out from his ingenious pictorial mazes our own particular politician or favourite actor; we roar at "Lika Joko's" comicality, and only know him as a caricaturist. But there is another side to this studio picture—Mr. Harry Furniss's pencil is such that it can make you weep; so realistic, indeed, that when in his early days he was sent to sketch scenes of distress and misery, they were so terribly real and dramatic that the paper in question dared not publish them. No artist appreciates a "situation" better than he. I looked through portfolio after portfolio, drawer after drawer—full of character studies and work of a serious character done in all parts of the world. These have never been given to the public. Should they ever be published, Mr. Harry Furniss will at once be voted as serious and dramatic an artist as he is an eminently refined yet outrageously humorous caricaturist. He is a great reader—he once collected first editions. We begin to talk seriously, when he suddenly closes the portfolio with a bang, shuts up once more his hidden and unknown talents, and hastens to inform you that he is a member of the Thirteen Club—Irving and he were elected together—and believes in helping other people to salt, dining thirteen on the thirteenth, with thirteen courses, etc. Always passes under ladders, and swears by peacocks' feathers.
We stand before the great easel in the middle of the room—though not much work is done there. He prefers to work standing at a desk. He draws all his pictures very large; they are studies from life. It prevents the work from getting cramped. ​The same model has stood for all his principal people for the last ten years, and he has a wardrobe of artistic "props" big enough to fit out every member of the House of Commons. He is a perfect business man. His ledger is a model book. Every one of his pictures is numbered. In this book spaces are ruled off for—Subject, Publisher, When delivered, Published, Price, When paid, When drawing returned, Price of original, and What came of it. Humour by no means knocks system out of a man. Look at the score of pigeonholes round the studio. As we are talking together now his secretary is "typing off" his illustrated weekly letter which finds a place in the St. James's Budget, New York World, Weekly Scotsman, Yorkshire Weekly Post, Liverpool Weekly Post, Nottinghamshire Guardian, South Wales Daily News, East Anglian Times, and in Australia, India, the Cape, etc. He writes children's books and illustrates them. His impressions of America are in course of preparation. There is his weekly Punch work; he is dodging about all over the country giving his unique "Humours of Parliament" entertainment, and he found time to make some special sketches for this little article.
From a Drawing by Mr. Furniss.
We sat down. Tea was brought in—he believes in two big breakfast cups every afternoon—and with "Bogie," the Irish deerhound—so called owing to his very solemn-looking countenance—close by, Mr. Furniss went back as far as he could possibly remember, to March 26th, 1854. That is the date of his birthday.
"I am always taken for an Irishman," said Mr. Furniss. "Nothing of the kind. My father was a Yorkshireman. He was in Ireland with my mother, and I believe I arrived at an unexpected moment. Possibly my artistic inclinations came through my mother. Her father was Æneas Mackenzie, a well-known literary man of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and proprietor of several newspapers. He founded the Newcastle School of Politics, and Mr. Joseph Cowen—as a boy—got his first tuition in politics from sitting at the knee of my grandfather. A bust of him is in the Mechanics' Institute—which he founded."
"At work." From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
Little Harry was brought up in Wexford. He remembers being held up in his nurse's arms to see the Great Eastern pass on its first voyage, whilst an incident associated with the marriage of the Prince of Wales is ​vividly impressed upon his mind. He was struck on the top of his hat by a "fizzing devil" made out of moist powder, which burnt a hole through it. He says that he would rather have this recollection on his mind now, than the "fizzer" on his head at the time. The young artist in embryo was a rare young pugilist at school. He was forced to use his fists, as friction was strong between the Irish and English lads at the school he went to. But he did well in athletic sports, and was never beaten in a hundred yards race. He firmly believes that this early athletic training is responsible for the rapid way in which he does everything to-day—be it walking or talking, eating or working, all is done on the hundred yards principle—to get there first.
He was a spoilt boy—first of all because he was sent to a girls' school, but mainly from a very significant incident which happened at the Wesleyan College School in Dublin—a collegiate establishment from which pupils (not necessarily Wesleyans, for Mr. Furniss is not of that sect) passed to Trinity College—where he obtained all his education. He was not a studious lad. He found the editing, writing, illustrating, publishing, and entire bringing-out of a small journal he founded far more agreeable to his taste than Latin verbs and algebraical problems.
"I was in knickerbockers at the time," he said, "and introduced to the schoolboy public—The Schoolboy's Punch. It sounds strangely prophetic as I think of it now. The entire make-up of it was à la Punch, and it had its cartoon every week. At that time the Davenport Cabinet Trick was all the rage, and the very first cartoon I drew was founded on that. Here is the picture: myself—as a schoolboy—being tied up with ropes depictive of Greek, Latin, Euclid, and other cutting and disagreeable items. I am placed in the cabinet—the school. The head-master, whom I flattered very much in the drawing, opens another cabinet and out steps the young student covered with glory and scholastic honours thick upon him! From that moment my school-master spoiled me. I left school and started work. I got a pound for my first drawing. A. M. Sullivan started a paper in Ireland on very similar lines to Punch. There was a wave in Ireland of better class journalism at this time which had never existed before or since. I slipped in. For some years I drew on wood and engraved my own work. I was given to understand that all black and white men engraved their own efforts, so I offered myself as an apprentice to an engraver.
"He said: 'Don't come as an apprentice. If you will undertake to look after my office, I'll teach you the art of engraving.'"
It meant a hard struggle for young Furniss. He was loaded down with clerical work, but in his own little room, when the day's labours were done, he would sit up till two and three in the morning. There was no quenching his earnestness. Work then with him was a real desire. It is so to-day. To rest is obnoxious to him.
Study of an Irishman.
He worked away. The feeling in Ireland against Englishmen at that time was very strong. Tom Taylor, then the editor of Punch, saw some of his sketches in Dublin, and advised him to go to the West of Ireland to make studies of character. He was in Galway, and he had persuaded a number of Irishmen who were breaking stones to pause in their work ​and let him sketch them. They consented. The overseer came up.
"What d'yer mane," he cried, "allowing this hathen Saxon to draw yer?"
"I've never been out of Ireland in my life," said the artist; but the overseer had seized him, and but for the intervention of the men, whom he had paid liberally for the "sitting," he would have thrown him into the river.
Then a great trouble came. His father was stricken with blindness. The young man came to London, and with something more than the proverbial half-crown in his pocket. He was nineteen years of age when he hurried out of Euston Station one morning and stood for a moment thinking—for he did not know a soul in the Metropolis. But he soon found an opportunity.
My. Furniss on "Rhoda." From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
"My first work was on London Society, for Florence Marryat," he said; "then for the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. The Illustrated London News employed me. I did such things as the Boat Race, Eton and Harrow cricket match, and similar subjects—all from a humorous point of view. I have had as many as three full pages in one number. Then came that terrible distress in the mining districts. I was married that year. I was sent away to "do" the Black Country, and well remember eating the first Christmas dinner of my married life alone in a Sheffield hotel.
"Those sketches were never published. They were too terribly real. The people dying in rooms with scarcely a stick of furniture, the children opening the cupboards and showing them bare, appealed to me, and my pencil refused to depict anything else. It was the same kind of thing that was afterwards made notorious by Sims and Barnard in "How the Poor Live." I came back and was selected to do some electioneering work for the same paper. This necessitated the putting off of a little dinner party to some friends, and I wired one of the invited to that effect. When I was starting, imagine my surprise to meet a Graphic artist on the platform, and to hear that my friend had unwisely given away the contents of my telegram! However, we chummed up. He stayed with friends—I at an hotel. I sat up all that night working after attending the meetings. At four o'clock I heard a knock at the door. A journalist. I was just about to put into my picture the large figures. I made him very much at home, and told him I would give him any information I knew as to the previous night's proceedings if he would act as my model. He did. We worked on till breakfast time, and we sat down together. I sent off my page—it was in a week before the Graphic! It was a good return. I had started on the Tuesday, got home on the Thursday, and never had my boots off the whole time! I'd rather keep my boots on for a week than disappoint an editor."
Punch!
I asked Mr. Furniss if Tom Taylor helped him to any considerable extent. Oh dear, no. Tom Taylor wrote a terrible fist, spattered the page all over with ink, and invariably replied on the back of the letter sent him. At least, it was so in Mr. Furniss's case. He would send sketches to Punch; they were acknowledged as "unsuitable." They invariably turned up a week or so later—the idea ​re-drawn by a member of the staff! He He began to despair. But that first cartoon in the schoolboy's periodical was always before him.
The Furniss Family. From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
"When Mr. Burnand became editor," continued Mr. Furniss, "I was working on the Illustrated London News. He saw one of the sketches and asked me to call—the result was that I have worked for them ever since. I started at very small things; my first was a small drawing of Temple Bar. Then, when Parliament opened, Mr. H. W. Lucy commenced Toby—by-the-bye, Lucy and I both joined the Punch table, the weekly dinner, together—and I worked with him. I have special permission at the House; as a matter of fact, I have the sanction of the Lord Great Chamberlain to sketch anywhere in the precincts of Westminster. My right there is an individual one."
"But supposing, Mr. Furniss," I said, "they put a stop to you and your pencil entering?"
"I'd go into Parliament!" came the ready reply. And, indeed, he has been approached on this subject by constituencies two or three times.
We spoke of some of the eminent statesmen and others Mr. Furniss has caricatured. Mr. John Morley is the most difficult. He is not what an artist would call a black and white man. You must suggest the familiar red tie in your picture and then you have "caught" him.
"I have seen Mr. Morley look a boy, a young man, and an old man—and all in an hour," said Mr. Furniss. "Mr. Asquith is difficult, too. But I don't think I have ever missed him, as there's a Penley look about his face and a decided low comedian's mouth that help you immensely. Sir Richard Temple is the easiest. Many members have some characteristic action which assists you materially. For instance, Mr. Joseph Arch always wipes his hands down his coat before shaking hands with you, whilst Mr. Goschen delights to play with his eyeglass when speaking. Lord Randolph Churchill likes to indulge in a little acrobatic exercise and balance himself on one foot, whilst Mr. Balfour hangs on persistently to the lapel of his coat when talking. All these little things help to 'mark' the man for the caricaturist. I invented Gladstone's collar and made Churchill small. Not because he is small, but because I think it is the caricaturist's art not so much to give an absolutely correct likeness, but rather to convey the character and value of the man through the lines you draw. Gladstone! A wonderful man for the caricaturist, and one of the finest. I have sat and watched the rose in his coat droop and fade, his hair become dishevelled with excitement, and his tie get round to the back of his neck."
"And what do the wives of our estimable M.P.'s think of all this?" I hinted.
"Oh! I get most abusive letters from both sides. Wives of members write and ask me not to caricature their husbands. ​One lady wrote to me the other day, and said if I would persist in caricaturing her husband, would I put him in a more fashionable coat? Now, this particular member is noted for the old-fashioned cut of the coats he wears. Another asked me to make the sharer of her joys and sorrows better looking; whilst only last week a lady—the wife of a particularly well-known M.P.—addressed a most plaintive letter to me, saying that since some of the younger members of her family had contrived to see my pictures they had become quite rude to their papa!
"Why, members often ask me to caricature them. One member was very kindly disposed to me, and suggested that I should keep my eye on him. I did. Yet he cut me dead when he saw his picture! It's so discouraging, don't you know, when you are so anxious to oblige."
I asked Mr. Furniss if he thought there was anything suggestive of cruelty in caricature.
"Not in this country," he replied; "in Spain, Italy, and France—yes. Caricaturists there score off their cruelty. Listen to this. One night I was in the House. Mr. Gladstone rose to speak. He held his left hand up and referred to it as 'This old Parliamentary hand.' I noticed a fact—which men who had sat in that House for years had never seen. On that left hand Mr. Gladstone has only three fingers! Think of it—think of what your caricaturist with an inclination towards cruelty might have made of that fact, coupled with those significant words! I ask you again—think of it!"
He spoke in thorough earnestness. He told me that he looked forward to the time when he should consign to the rag-basket the famous Gladstone collar and cease to play with Goschen's eye-glass. He is striving to accomplish something more—he would do it now, but it isn't marketable. Mr. Furniss is a sensible man. He caricatures to live; and, if the laughs follow, well, so much the better.
Ballyhooly, M.P., gets excited.
The afternoon passed rapidly, and the studio became darker and darker. Venus on the coal-box looked quite ghostly, and a lay figure in the far corner was not calculated to comfort the nervously-inclined when amongst the "props" of an artist's studio. "Buzzy" merrily rushed in and announced dinner, and "Bogie" jumped up and barked his raptures at the word. "Bogie" knew it meant scraps. Mrs. Furniss and the children met us at the dining-room door. The youngsters' faces were as solemn as the Court of Queen's Bench. Little Lawrence looked up at me very demurely, the others waiting anxiously.
"Please could you tell us what a spiral staircase is?" he asked.
A dead silence.
"Oh!" I answered, anxious to show a superior knowledge of these peculiarly constructed "ups and downs," "It's—it's—it's one of those twirley-whirley"—here I illustrated my meaning by twirling my finger round and round.
A shout of laughter went up.
If the reader will try this little joke on a score of people, by the time the twentieth is arrived at he will then discover why the happiest quartette of youngsters in the immediate vicinity of Primrose Hill laughed so gaily.
Then we all went in to dinner. How well the shirt-cuff story went down with the soup.
"Pelligrini," said the artist, "used to remark somewhat sarcastically to his brother artists: 'Ah, you fellows are always making sketches. I carry all mine here—here in my brain! Pelligrini wore very big cuffs. He made his sketches on them. Until this came out we thought his linen always dirty!"
Then Burnand came on with the beef. ​The two fellow-workers on Punch—Mr. Burnand and Mr. Furniss—run pretty level in their ideas. A happy thought is often suggested to both of them through reading the same paragraph in a newspaper, and they cross in the post. We spoke of Punch's Grand Old Man—John Tenniel—of clever E. J. Milliken, whose really wonderful work is yet but little known. Mr. Milliken wrote "Childe Chappie"—and is "'Arry." Of Linley Sambourne, whom Mr. Furniss once saw walking down Bond Street, and had the strange intuition that he was the artist, connecting his work, and walk, and bearing together. He had never seen or spoken to him before. Charles Keene's name was mentioned. It was always the hardest matter to get Keene to make a speech. He far preferred the famous stump of a pipe to spouting. Mr. Furniss hurt Keene's feelings once with the happiest and kindest of compliments. It was at a little dinner party, and Mr. Furniss linked Keene's name with that of Robert Hunter—who did so much to provide open spaces for the people. He referred to Keene as "the greatest provider of open spaces!" Keene said he was never so grossly insulted—he never forgave Mr. Furniss. He failed to see the truly charming inference to be drawn from this remark.
We went into the drawing-room, and together ran through the pages of a huge volume. It contained the facsimiles of the pictures which comprised one of Mr. Furniss's biggest hits—what was in reality an attack on the Royal Academy. His "Artistic Joke"—a sub-title given to this exhibition by the Times in a long preliminary notice—created a sensation six years ago. He attacked the Royal Academy in a good-natured way, because he was not himself a member of that influential body. But there was a more solid and serious reason. "I saw how cruel they were to younger men," he said; "the long odds against a painter getting his work exhibited, the indiscriminate selection of canvases."
This really great effort on the part of Mr. Furniss—this idea to caricature the style of the eminent artists of the day—kept him at work for more than two years. There were eighty-seven canvases in all. His friends came and went, but they saw nothing of the huge canvases hidden away in his studio. He worked at such a rate that he became nervous of himself. He would go to bed at night. He would wake to find himself cutting the style of an R.A. to pieces in his studio at early morn—in a state of semi-somnambulism. He fired his "Artistic Joke" off, the shot went home, and the effect was a startler for many people and in many places. It advanced Mr. Furniss in the world of art in a way he never expected, and did not a little for those he sought to benefit. One of these "jokes"—and a very dramatic one—is reproduced in these pages.
"The assassinated scarecrow, sor!"
The hour or two passed in the little drawing-room after dinner was delightful. We had his unique platform entertainment. Mr. Furniss was induced by the Birmingham and Midland Institute to appear on the platform as a lecturer. This was followed by his lecturing for two seasons all over the country, but finding that the Institutes made huge profits out of his efforts, and that his anecdotes and mimicry were the parts most relished, he abandoned the rôle of lecturer for that of entertainer with "The Humours of Parliament." As soon as he had crushed the idea that it was a lecture, people flocked to hear his anecdotes and to watch his acting, the result of his first short tour resulting in a clear profit of over £2,000.
​So it came about that young Frank closed his foreign stamp book, and "Buzzy" settled down in a corner by her mother's side and looked the little model she is. "Bogie" lay on the hearth-rug. Suddenly—we were all in "The House." We heard the young member make his maiden speech; we watched the mournful procession of the Speaker. Mr. Gladstone appeared upon the scene—he walked the room, and in a merry sort of way played with "Buzzy's" long curls—and took an intense interest in Frank's collection of foreign stamps. "Bogie" was evidently was evidently inclined to break out in a loud bark of presumable applause when the Irish member rose to his legs—the member for Ballyhooly—who had a question to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland regarding an assassinated scarecrow! The reply did not satisfy him, and the Ballyhooly M.P. poured forth such a torrent of abuse upon the Chief Secretary's head that "Bogie's" bark came forth in boisterous tones just as the Speaker called the Irish representative to order!
Drawing from "An Artistic Joke."
"What a hissing there was at one of my entertainments at Leicester," said the humorist-caricaturist looking across at me with twinkling eyes. "A terrible hissing! I showed Mr. Gladstone on the sheet. Immediately it burst forth like a suddenly alarmed steam-engine. The audience rose in indignation—they tried to outdo it with frantic applause, but in spite of their lusty efforts it continued for several minutes.
"'Turn him out—turn him out!' they cried. cried. But we couldn't find the party who was acting so rudely.
"Imagine my feelings next morning when I saw in the papers leading articles speaking ​in strong terms of this occurrence, which, one of them stated in bold type—'was a disgrace to the people of Leicester.'"
"Bogie" rose from the hearth-rug, wagged his tail, and made his exit.
"Good night, Buz."
"Good night, Frank."
"And did they ever discover this very unseemly person?" I asked Mr. Furniss when we were alone.
"Oh! I forgot to tell you," he said, "that it was the hissing of the lime in my magic lantern!"
Harry How.