The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1894-06-25
THOMAS Nksr OF LONDON.
Ehe Remarkable Career That the Once
Great C-arsoonist Had ii This Country.

Wa.a Remarkable Career That the Once
Great Cartoonist Had IN This Country.
The news that Thomas Mast has gone
10 making political cartoons on the Pail
Mall Gazette In London caused o ripple
of astonishment wherever artists gather
in this town. The career that no thus
brings TO d close in America has indeed
been a very remarkable n About
Nast's origin and early life very little
has been made public, but 1t has always
been gossiped among the artists that he
Is partly Italian, German and Jewish.
and that before he came to America he
was with Garibaldi in that patriots
army. As an artist he 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 c~artoonist in America. But
from the first he made cartoons and lit
tie else. They were o 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 MI. Tweed. Most of his work up
TO and at that time was drawn with pen
or pencil directly upon the wooden
pblocks which were to be carved out into
wood cuts afterward. He did q part OF
his work with india ink ''washr on the
wood in the same way. He parted with
the Harpers later, owing, it was said, to
difference of political opinion, bat re-
turned to The Weekly after a long alb
sence at a salary that was considered re-
markable. Some said that he got $l5,-
600 a year, and some said that the fignre
was i 1000. 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 hui
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 q great deal of money, but 1t was
said that he lost most of II. He went
into q 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 ciumsily 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 a pres.
emit of plate for what he did to glcrify
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 hi:
opponents.
Mr.. Mast lived well in q pretty sub
urban home and had many warm friends
around him. His personal popularity
was very great all over the country. Hi.
lecture trips, when he gave blackboard
J talks all over the country, made him wei
known in even the smaller cities, and
travellers say that today there is scarcely
a clubhouse between this city and tn,
Pacific coest wherein the visitor will no
, see Themes Nast's bearded face drawn
by himself, framed and in q place o
honor. Ii was his ability to express
popular sentiment in a picture that CAV
: him his vogue. Whether he can remode
{ his mind tohit the English taste remain
] 10 be seen.-New York Sun.