The age-herald., 1900-10-14

unerring instinct Butler writhed under the torture, and he continued to writhe under 1t for very many years; since as soon as the word went abroad that he pos sesed one vulnerable spot, immediate the country teemed with caricatures suggested by that which we have just described. each wing with the other to outdo it in offen- siveness. The subject of it never became accustomed to it; he never ceased to feel II; he never ceased to suffer from it.
 The most terrible, however, of all politi- cal cartoons belonging to this class was in the series drawn by the hate Bernard Gil- lam for Puck during the Blaine Cleveland campaign of 1884. Every one must remem- Der this for it is now historic; and we be- heVe that 1t did far more to turn the scale against MT. Blaine than did even his fam ous millionaires' dinner or the allfterative indiscretion of Dr. Burchard. The cartoon or which we speak is. of course, the fam ous cartoon of "The Tattooed Man." in which MT. Blaine appeared as a figure in political show with his skin tattooed all over with marks indicative of the alleged scandals of his legislative career.
 The present campaign has been unlike those Of preceding years in that the best cartoons, from every point of view save an artistic one, are to be found, not in the weekly periodicals, such as Harper's, Frank Leslie's, Judge, Puck and others, put In the daily newspapers. They are al- most always roughly executed-hasty drawings, scratched off on the spur of the moment with no attempt at finish and no regard for real technique. Yet their mak- CTS are often extremely clever men, and they have the advantage in the daily news papers of transfxing topic at the very moment when 1t Is freshest in the public mind.
 Among the ablest of these rough-and- ready producers of political graffiti Is MT. Homer DaNenDnrt of the New York Journal Who has drawn at least one figure which seems to us In It's rude vigor of conception and its effectiveness of execution almost worthy to be ranked with MT Gillam's Tat tooed Man. If it is not actually so effective, thls Is only because it Is less concreate In not being personal but rather a personifica- tion. It is figure which represents the trusts, and 1t Is a huge, oVergrown mon- strosity of A man With enormous bulging muscles, vast shoulders, great bull neck and sort of Assyrian beard, but with head so small as to be a little more than a mere knob upon the shoulders that sup port it. This figure Is brute force most strikingly per sonified It repres ants violence, lawlessness and oppression unrelieved by intellect or mercy or kindliness of any sort whatever.
 There is something so outrageous about the conception which MT Davenport has thus worked out as to make it fully as hideous as the artist had intended it to be. It is whole political plea in itself, appeal ing through the shudder which it eXcites to every one who sees 1t, by arousing in him an intense antagonism; for it is the apotheosis of the repusive. What interests us greatly Is the undoubted fact that when 1t Is drawn by any other pen than MT Dav- exports it becomes purely commonplace and has no power to affect one in the least. His fellew-cartoonists may copy it with the utmost ncety of imitation; yet somehow when they do it, the power of the thing has utterly departed. There can be no better example In small way of how in some subtle fashion an artists in- dividuaty permeates his creations and of how mere raughtsmanship, however able it may be, can copy only the externals; for the soul of no mans work can be taken from him by another.