The Wichita daily eagle., 1893-11-23

the latter would accomplish. Our peo-
and guffaw and have their buttons sent
! flying from their coats. They would
be amused, surely, but there must be
method in the amusement. For
twenty years the male population of
this country endeavored, but vainly,
to induce women to appear at theaters
with small hats on their heads. The
humorists took up the cause and ac-
complished the work in as many
weeks. ~1,
But the satirist of pen and pencil is
not without the tribute of enmity at
! home. He is accused of carving his
| liberty to license. He has. say critics,
destroyed respect for serious things
| and made reverence a tradition. It
was argued recently that the president
! of the United States stands for the
sovereignty of seventy million people
and should not be the target Of every
cartoonists ridicule. The men whom
we have chosen to rule US are living
embodiment for the time being Of our
institutions and to heap absurdity upon
them is only another way of holding
republican institutions up 10 contempt.
Such arguments strangely miss the
point of genuine caricature, putting
aside the fact that popular judgment
never fails to distinguish scurrility
from satres. Did any American ever
achieve distinction, as either humorist
or cartoonist. by holding the institu-
tions of his country up to contempte
For in this republic we have the most
rigid of all press eensorships-that of
thelpeople. ,4~
If anyone were curious enough to
compile such a book. the history of
any given ieveht t or person. as our hui
morists have told it, would be well
worth reading 1t is told of Queen
Victoria that she possesses almost a
life of herself in a collection of carica-
lures taken for years back from the
pages of Punch and that weekly's con-
tenporaries. Various eminent Ameri-
cans have been said to preserve all the
jokes and pictures of which they be-
come the target. Unfortuna tely works
so compiled never come Tnder the pub
lie eye. 1t NAV be, Of course. that the
transient nature of all such produc-
tions would not make them generally
interesting even were they published
But.a matter of retrospection and an
amusing way to study history, the old
Jokes and pictures are worth looking
over. Roscoe Conkling lives again
Grant is president once more The alb
surdities of foreign visitors now in
their graves seem Of the present day.
Who. when the memory of Eehring
sea arbitration is 4 matter only of his
tory, will find anything funny in this,
with its accompanying cartoon OF
American and British commissioners:
prrTY
Mother, may 80 out 10 s-im'"
Asked the sea- with aspect awesouse
Yes NJ child aer mamma replied,
Bgt look out for TIC mare csansum-'
II must be admitted. however. tha
e-en in this country there are pro-
duced pictures and pms which betray
q sad inconception Of ,vhs; hu1nor is
II isth;s aualityo OF harmony through
out tina, make. the genuine humorous I
production. The picture alone may be +
almost ordinary. the words accompany /
ing il not particularly bright, but If .
the two together make Fash of wit. /
the object aimed at Is achieved .
srDcrb cartoon with weak sentences
beneath it Is spoiled SO Is brilliant
paragraph when the artiS, fails 20 do i
j, iustiee.
An artist recently had this 20 Illus
trate:
'Algr-Weginald. what did ron say,
you know. when you were presented
10 the nwiuce Of Naiex2