The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1894-06-17
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THOMAS MAST OF LONDON.
Tho Remarkable Career That tho Once
Great Cartoonist Had In This Country.

Iho tkcmarkabde career I12t the once
Great Caztoonist Had In This Country.
The news that Thomas Mast has gone
to making political cartoons on the Pail
Mall Gazette in London caused q ripple
Of astonishment wherever artists gather
in this town. The career that he thus
brings to close in America has indeed
been a very remarkable one. About
Nasts origin and early life very little
has been made public. but it has always
been gossiped among the artists that he
Is partly italian, German and Jewish,
and that before he camo to America he
was with Garibaldi in that patriots
army. AS an artist no first went to work
for Frank Leslie in this city. The most
important work he did for him is said to
have been the Heenan-Sayers fight in
England. Soon afterward he began work
upon Harper's Weekly. He did not at
once develop the gift which made him
the most talked of artist and the most
powerful cartoonist in America. But
from the first he made cartoons and lit
tie else. They were not humorous at
the start, but, the year being 1854, were
upon war subjects and were patriotic
and sentimental.
Toward the close Of that year, when
Mcclellan was nominated for president
by the Democrats, Mast began his polit-
ical work, which ended brilliantly in
1871, when he began his attacks ON Will
liam M. Tweed. Most of his work up
to and at that time was drawn with pen
or pencil directly upon the wooden
blocks which were to be carved out into
wood cuts afterward. He did a part of
his work with india ink "wash" on the
wood in the same way. He parted with
the Harpers later, owing, it was said, to
difference of political opinion, but re-
turned to The Weekly after long abb
sence at salary that was considered re-
markable. Some said that he got $751;
900 year, and some said that the fgnre
was $4,000. But his star had declined
Keppler had filed the field and with
merits that Mast never had. Keppler
had no limitations or letters. He was
an absolute free lance, his sense of hu-
NOR was broader and his power of satire
was keener. Moreover, he made artistic
pictures, enhanced by the use of gay col
ors. Mast could not recover his old place
as the chief of our cartoonists. He had
made great deal of money, but it was
into western mining venture and spec
ulated in other ways without success
He took up newspaper work last of all,
but it was evident that in every field he
had been distanced by those who had
the artistic faculty supplemented by ar
tistic training. Mast never had either.
He drew very clumsily and crudely.
Had he been able to keep pace with the
artistic progress of the country, or had
he stopped work in 1872, his fame would
have been splendid. During the closing
year of the war he was more detested in
the south than the most rabid abolition
list in Boston, and in the same measure
he was idolized in the north. The Union
League club of this city gave him pres
emit of plate for what he did to glorify
patriotism and the northern cause.
When he fought Tweed with his pencil,
it was reported that his life was threat
ened and that great brides were offered
to him. Tweed was reported to have
said that Nast's pictures worried him
more than all that was written by his
opponents.
Mr.. Mast lived we'll in pretty sub
urban home and had many warm friends
around him. His personal popularity
was very great all over the country. His
lecture trips, when he gave blackboard
talks all over the country, made him well
known in even the smaller cities, and
travellers say that today there is scarcely
clubhouse between this city and the
Pacific coast wherein the visitor will not
see Thomas Nast's bearded face drawn
by himself, framed and in place of
honor. 1t was his ability to express a
popular sentiment in picture that gave
him his vogue. Whether he can remodel
his mind hit the English taste remains
to be seen.-New York Sun: