Abraham Lincoln and the London Punch

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ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE LONDON PUNCH

[Illustration: THE AMERICAN JUGGERNAUT]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE LONDON PUNCH

Cartoons, Comments and Poems, Published in the London Charivari, During the American Civil War (1861-1865)

Edited by

WILLIAM S. WALSH

Author of "A Handbook of Literary Curiosities," "Curiosities of Popular Customs," "Faust, the Legend and the Poem," etc.

New York Moffat, Yard and Company 1909

Copyright 1909, by William S. Walsh New York Published March 1909

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The American Juggernaut Frontispiece

Divorce A Vinculo 12

The American Difficulty 14

The American Gladiators 14

Naughty Jonathan 20

How they went to take Canada 20

A Family Quarrel 20

King Cotton Bound 22

The Genu-ine Othello 26

Over the Way 28

The Wilful Boy 33

A Likely Story 34

Look out for Squalls 40

A Bad Case of Throwing Stones 42

Waiting for an Answer 42

Columbia's Fix 42

Boxing Day 46

"Up a Tree" 46

Naughty Jonathan 48

Oberon and Titania 50

The New Orleans Plume 52

The "Sensation" Struggle in America 54

The Latest from America 56

One Good Turn Deserves Another 58

"Not up to Time" 60

Lincoln's Two Difficulties 60

More Free than Welcome 60

The Overdue Bill 62

Abe Lincoln's Last Card 64

Latest from Spirit-Land 64

Scene from the American "Tempest" 64

"Beware" 66

The Great "Cannon Game" 70

"Rowdy" Notions of Emancipation 72

Brutus and Cæsar 74

The Black Conscription 74

John Bull's Neutrality 76

Scylla and Charybdis 79

The Storm-Signal 84

Extremes Meet 86

"Beecher's American Soothing Syrup" 88

"Holding a Candle to the ****" 97

Neutrality 98

Something for Paddy 98

Very Probable 98

Mrs. North and her Attorney 106

Columbia's Sewing-Machine 106

The Black Draft 109

The Federal Ph[oe]nix 109

Grand Transformation Scene 109

The Threatening Notice 109

Vulcan in the Sulks 109

The American Gladiators--Habet! 111

Brittania Sympathises with Columbia 111

Peace 112

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE LONDON PUNCH

"Tell me what a man laughs at, and I will tell you what he is," was one of Goethe's pregnant apothegms.

Laughter, one of the chief lines of cleavage between man and beast, is one of the chief points of differentiation between man and man. From the good-natured banter which kins all the world to the envenomed sneer that sunders it, laughter runs the whole gamut of human emotions.

It is always sincere, even in its own despite. No subterfuge, when subterfuge underlies it, is more easily unmasked. A man may smile and smile and be a villain, but villainy by the seeing eye can be infallibly detected beneath the smile.

A counterfeit laugh may be uttered, as counterfeit coin is uttered, but it does not ring true. Its baseness reveals itself to more senses than one.

Now for more than sixty years the recognized organ of British laughter has been the London Punch. The contemporary mood of John Bull towards Brother Jonathan has always voiced itself through the grinning lips of this chartered jester.