The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1874-04-23
MAST.
The Great Caricaturist Before .
Des Moines Audience-An Hour
with o Crayon Lecture.

\ man about thirty years OF age,
hair and eyes as black as night ,mous-
tache as black, and 1.-THE and active
of motion-Nast. The Opera House
was well filed aud the audience was
fully appreciative. The lecture was
rambling and disjointed. An idea
would be broached, half clucidated
by the speakers voice, and complet.
ed by his crayon. He commenced
by defining man rs an animal that
laughs, and then made picture Of
the abillal and an Opera House full
Of kindred animals laughing to zee il.
| A reference to the critical English
man who thinks Americans always
serious, was made the occasion Of
drawing laughable and sidesplit.ing
crayon portrait of that individual,
which furnished pretcxt again for
drawing dirty and insignificant
looking British lion. Opposite this
he placed profile view Of repre-
sentative American just to ,how
what a jolly chap he was. The lee
ture was merely story on which TO
string artistic exhibitions of his skill
as caricaturist, and it must be con-
fessed they were the most interesting
portion of the performance.
A great deal of the lecture YVES the
merest platitudinizing, cribbed from
Webster's Unabridged, as he himself
modestly and humerously remarked,
and contained little of any great in
terest except that relating to the
Tammany war and an account of his
own career. On the other hand the
audience watched the drawing Of the
pictures with the closest attention, and
when the finishing touches were put
upon il, invariably burst into laugh
ter or applause Each was sur
prise, the last stroke was the climax.
The first step in making one carl
cature was to draw on the board u
circle, which he filled with flesh col
ored chalk; then to the right and left
he filed up two smaller circles in the
same way; then he put ut some dis
tance beneath the large circle two
objects, which a near observer might
recognize as shoes; then he filled out
in succession the arms legs, and body
then he impigned the moon with q
deep blood-red tinge, in which a nose
soon appeared, then in succession a
mouth, and the deeper lines Of the
countenance, and Ben. Buffers face
and form stood boldly out.
A few swift strokes made hill.-
Half dozen more dashes presented
a balky horse, and sinking in the wa
ter at the foot of the hill were the
boots of "DeSoto discovering the
Mississippi" the body and head be-
ing buried in the water. The effect
was irrisistably comic.
His skctching is maryelously rapid.
From three to five minutes sufiices to
complete the most elaborate of his
pictures. The pictures were the lec-
ture, and the words were mainly EN-
ployed as punctuation points for the
sentences Of chalk. His own history
was briefly told, commencing with a
caricature of Leslie as he appeared
when Mast first offered his services
to him aud Mast himself at that mo-
ment. Leslie sent him out to sketch
the depa't re of Il Loaf, and succeed
ing in ,hs, he was employed at the
mag,i.ice, salary of five dollars q
We, X. He was determined to be-
come grand historical painter, when,
in th. course of the war, General
Buffers decision that the slaves were
contraband, came along, and that was
his first political caricature. 1t was
not until the war was over that
genuine opportunity occurred for ca
ricure. He began upon Andy John.
son, when the latter commenced his
war on the Freedman's Bureau.
Mast then told Of his war with the
Tammany and Erie rings, most Of
which is already familiar to the pub
lie illustrating it with number of
cuts of Tweed, and showing how the
ideas at the bottom Of his most fa-
nous cartoons had beon suggested to
him. In conclusion, he commenced
drawing picture on the board, which
was soon recognized as that Of the
artist himself in his night-shirt, and
then inscribed over it, "Good-night,"
and with that the audience dispersed.
State Register.