The History of "Punch" Part 43

The great arrival of the year was Mr. E. T. Reed, who was to bring a new form of humour into _Punch_--or, rather, to bring back the old, rollicking, genuine low-comedy cla.s.s of fun, more generous and mirth-provoking than the higher comedy of the day, that aims but to induce a smile.

His appearance in _Punch_ (on the 8th of June, 1889) was due to the casual remark of Mr. Linley Sambourne to Mr. Blake Wirgman that the Editor was looking round for some new man who could do comic work. Mr.

Wirgman suggested their common friend, Mr. Reed, whom, however, Mr.

Sambourne only knew as a painter-student, and the latter promised to send some of his sketches to Mr. Burnand to look at. The upshot was a request for a drawing representing "The Parnell Commissioners enjoying themselves up the River" during a pause in the trial of Parnell _v._ the "Times." Other drawings, that attracted general attention, followed in rapid succession. Who that has seen it can forget the "Fancy Portrait"

(by induction) "of my Laundress"--a brawny-armed woman standing over his s.h.i.+rts, which she belabours with a spike-studded club? or the "Automatic Policeman" at a crowded crossing, which, when a penny is dropped into the slot, puts up its arm and stops the traffic? or the "Restored Skeleton of a Bicyclist," and other "happy thoughts" of that period? It was obvious that the draughtsman was not a practised artist, although a skilful amateur; but those who detected the artistic lack of training forgave it heartily for the genuine fun and originality of a fresh and delightful kind. Since that time Mr. Reed rapidly developed his undoubted powers, which, for a young man who did not begin to draw until he was twenty-three years of age, showed themselves at once to be remarkable.

Then followed a clever series of "Contrasts," such as the professional fasting man fortune-making at the Aquarium, and a Balaclava hero left to starve by a grateful country--thus repeating unconsciously Cruikshank's famous plate of "Born a Genius: Born a Dwarf," wherein the tragedy of Benjamin Robert Haydon and the triumph of Tom Thumb, both proceeding in the Egyptian Hall, were dramatically depicted. Another, and still more remarkable, contrast of Mr. Reed's was that in which the terrible _tricoteuses_ of the French Revolution, knitting with quite tragic joviality before the guillotine, are compared with the modern Society ladies in court enjoying a criminal's sensational trial, so that the spectator hardly knows which are the more repellent. It may be stated, as a matter of curiosity, that--except for the point of contrast, which, after all, is a princ.i.p.al feature of the design--Doyle antic.i.p.ated Mr.

Reed's protest by showing, in 1849, a "Scene in Court during an interesting Trial," when the crime of Manning and his wife was engrossing the attention of all England and proving a "great attraction"

to _dames du monde_.

In 1890 Mr. Burnand raised his young recruit to the rank of Staff-officer to fill the vacancy which had just occurred--a premature promotion, the wiseacres said. Mr. Reed then produced his forensic drawings, often basing them on sketches supplied by Sir Frank Lockwood, Q.C.; yet his work fluctuated so much in quant.i.ty that it was more than once rumoured that he and _Punch_ had parted company. But in due course his triumph came when, in the Christmas number of 1893, he began "Prehistoric Peeps"--including "The First Hansom," "Primeval Billiards,"

and "A Quiet Game of Whist in Primeval Times." These popular fancies were no sudden inspiration; they were developed gradually. Following a natural humorous bent for dealing with sham antiquities in _Punch_, Mr.

Reed had started during the previous year a series of "exhibits" in the Imperial Inst.i.tute of the Future, consisting of comic restorations of common objects of to-day--the ridiculous speculations of the future archaeologist. There was a much-patched and battered restoration of a four-wheeled cab; then a comic policeman; and the draughtsman was proceeding with a hansom when he experienced a difficulty in getting freshness into the treatment. So he determined to become a Cuvier on his own account, and, by going back to the beginning, to show the real original hansom, as it might have been, in pre-historic times. The artist was intensely amused with the idea, and finis.h.i.+ng his three drawings--the other two suggesting themselves--delivered them just in time for the Almanac. The result was, in its way, electrical. Within a week everybody was laughing at them and talking about them. In the "Daily News" a leading-article was devoted to arguing, with admirable mock-gravity, that the artist's object in these drawings--especially in that of the Prehistoric Parliament, in which all our legislators are clad in primeval fas.h.i.+on, while the Speaker keeps order with the aid of an enormous tomahawk--was, of course, to prove the theory that similarity of face and figure accompanies similarity of pursuit throughout the generations. At Cambridge, in the May Week, the _tableaux vivants_ of the "Footlights Society" included exact reproductions of the "Primeval Billiards" and "No Bathing To-day!"--skins, expressions, mastodons and all; while at Molesey Invitation Regatta (August, 1894) the "Prehistoric Coaching for the Boat Race" was carried out to the life in mid-river, with Gaul and Briton, woad-stained skins, raft, and fight, with the fearsome palaeontological intruders, complete to the last detail--and applications were quickly made to the _Punch_ Proprietors for permission to reproduce the scenes on magic-lantern slides for the use of schools! This, perhaps, is to be explained by the accuracy of many of the pre-historic beasts. Even at the London Inst.i.tution a scientific lecturer has borne witness to the life-likeness of Mr. Reed's _stegosaurus imglutis_, and especially of the _triceratops_ and the sprightly _pterodactyle_. Little wonder Sir William Agnew broke through the rule of "no speeches" at the Wednesday Dinner, and proposed the health of the young artist who had made for the paper so striking a success. When Mr. Harry Furniss retired, Mr. Reed was appointed his successor as Parliamentary draughtsman, and soon showed his independence of humour in his new post.

After Mr. Whistler had contributed his b.u.t.terfly (p. 293, Vol.

XCVIII.)--the sign-manual in the use of which he has for some years found so much harmless, if rather childish, pleasure--Mr. Maud, at that time a Royal Academy student, began his sporting sketches. The first drawing (published on p. 249, Vol. C., though it had been sent in six months before) was called "A Check." A country lout is sitting on a fence-rail shouting, and the hunt comes up. "Seen the fox, my boy?" asks the huntsman. "No, I ain't!" replies the lad. "Then what are you hollarin' for?" "Because," answers the scarecrow, "because I'm paid for it." This picture was a valuable introduction, procured through a friend who forwarded his drawing, for it brought him an invitation to ill.u.s.trate "Romford's Hounds" and "Hawbuck Grange," as well as an established, though intermittent, connection with _Punch_. With few exceptions, Mr. Maud's jokes are the result of personal experience, for he looks to _contretemps_ in the field for his humorous subjects.

Through falling with his horse into a big drain in the Belvoir country--a precious accident for him--he collected sufficient matter to produce three jokes which duly saw the light. But the collection of such material is "d.a.m.ned hard riding," and each hunting season has only brought forth about ten such productions. Since that time Mr. Maud has turned his attention to sources of humour other than the hunting-field; and as in 1893 he carried off the Landseer scholars.h.i.+p and two silver medals for painting from the life, it is possible that he may in the near future be tempted far from the joyous art of comic black-and-white.

[Ill.u.s.tration: J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE.

(_Drawn by Himself._)]

Mr. Bernard Partridge made his first drawing for _Punch_ in 1891, through the instrumentality of Mr. du Maurier, one of his greatest admirers. It was a drawing of a bishop in a distressing and undignified pose, and, though small in size, it proved at once to readers of _Punch_ the justice of the extraordinary reputation the young artist had gained elsewhere. It was not only that his drawing and proportion are always entirely right--that, perhaps, is to be expected in the son of the late teacher of anatomy at the Royal Academy Schools--but that his handling is so graceful and dainty, his effects of light and shade so masterly, his portraiture so true, and his power of representing expression, as shown both in face and figure, so absolute. Mr. du Maurier saw in him his own successor for the time when he may be called upon to lay the pencil down; and the public recognised in him an appreciator of beauty to a degree hardly excelled by Mr. du Maurier himself. Being, moreover, as familiar with the expression of the foreigner as with that of the East-Ender, or the resident of "Buckley Square," he was a recruit after Mr. Punch's own heart and interest.

It is because Mr. Partridge's love for the stage is stronger than for the pencil that the invitation to contribute to _Punch_, and, in 1892, his promotion to the regular Staff, did not arouse in him any great enthusiasm at the time. Soon, however, he warmed up to his work, and his ill.u.s.trations to Mr. Anstey's inimitable "Voces Populi," "The Man from Blankley's," and other of that writer's serials, made their mark at once, supported as they were by the "socials," signed now with his cipher, now with his quaint "Perdix fecit."

Concurrently with Mr. Partridge (1891), Mr. Everard Hopkins made his appearance with one of two drawings sent in. The accepted one was an admirable travesty of the _denouement_ of Ibsen's "Doll's House,"

representing a buxom middle-aged virago leaving the house of her diminutive hen-pecked husband, whose "birdie" she declines any longer to be. Numerous drawings of a graceful kind have since come from him, until he is in the way of being regarded as a recognised outside contributor.

Then followed Mr. Reginald Cleaver, whose work, somewhat hard, but of great beauty in its own line, has been devoted to "social" subjects; and on January 1st, 1892, Mr. W. J. Hodgson sent in a picture that was destined to be the first of a long series. He is essentially a sporting man--a vital necessity for _Punch_--and having been brought up in the thick of the sporting world, has immortalised in his pages many a hunting joke and sc.r.a.p of "horsey" humour. His subjects are usually actualities, and more than once has a whole countryside been startled by the appearance in _Punch_ of an incident that had just formed matter for gleeful conversation after a day's sport. Such was the amusing otter-hunt story that appeared in July, 1894, in which, under the t.i.tle of "The Course of True Love, etc.," Miss Di, a six-foot damsel, asks her five-foot-three curate-lover to pick her up and carry her across the watercourse, "as it is rather deep, don't you know;" and the Wilts.h.i.+re village where it occurred and the chief actors in the little comedy became at once the talk of the county, and the water itself is pointed out as the scene of the incident. Mr. Hodgson, it may be noted, was introduced to _Punch_ through Sir Frank Lockwood, who sent to the Editor a volume which the draughtsman had ill.u.s.trated.

Miss Maud Sambourne, when no more than eighteen years of age, also contributed her first drawing in the spring of 1892--a charming little figure of a girl, as dainty as a sketch by Mr. Abbey, and as different from her father's work as well could be imagined. Similar little drawings from her graceful pencil have appeared from time to time, the prettiest, perhaps, being "A Fair Unknown," on June 2nd, 1894.

On November 12th, 1892 (p. 221, Vol. CIII.), appears an elaborate page of verses, explanatory notes, and four cuts ill.u.s.trative of "The Vanis.h.i.+ng Rupee"--a picture greatly appreciated in India. The originator of this satirical page was Mr. J. H. Roberts, an architect who had turned his back on his profession and had cast in his lot with ill.u.s.trated journalism; and the manner in which he hit off the standing grievance of Anglo-India betrayed a touching personal interest in this painful fiscal question.

Mr. Arthur A. Sykes, more closely identified with _Punch_ as a verse and prose writer than as a draughtsman, began the first of his sketches in November, 1893; and on the 18th of the same month Sir Frank Lockwood, Q.C., who had hitherto been content to see his artistic effervescence re-drawn by Mr. E. T. Reed, appeared in his own right with a comic scribble representing a barrister afflicted with a bad cold energetically addressing the court. It was ent.i.tled: "Cold, but In-vig-orating"--a pictorial pun worthy of Hood or Hine. This was the first of a series.

About this time the distinguished draughtsman, Mr. Arthur Hopkins, who has rarely been surpa.s.sed in rendering the simple grace of pretty English girlhood, evolved a joke while shopping with his wife, and straightway ill.u.s.trated it and sent it on to _Punch_. It appeared the next week, and was quickly followed by another on the 1st of April.

Since then the artist has been seen no more in _Punch's_ pages, although, jokes serving, he is still a _persona grata_ in Whitefriars.

Mr. J. F. Sullivan--the immortal depictor of the humours and amenities of "The British Workman," and for many years the incarnation of "Fun"--struck up a belated connection with _Punch_, also in November, 1893. His drawings ran continuously during that and the next two months to the number of a dozen or so, and then, with the exception of an "old stock" sketch or two, they incontinently ceased.

The Almanac for 1894 witnessed the debut of Mr. J. A. Shepherd, who, on the strength of his comic "Zig-Zags at the Zoo," was invited by Mr.

Burnand to send in a page. His comic animals, drawn with singular precision and skill, and full of character, seemed to hit the popular taste, and, save for a period when ill-health interrupted, Mr. Shepherd has continued his contributions. He was a pupil of Mr. Alfred Bryan, and for a couple of years was on the staff of "Moons.h.i.+ne." Another recruit of 1894 was Mr. A. S. Boyd, one of the most brilliant of the "Daily Graphic" staff, and still affectionately remembered as "Twym" of the "Bailie" and "Quiz" of Glasgow. His first contribution (April 7th) was a sketch of a lady in an omnibus, whose outrageously large sleeves extinguished her neighbours as effectually as the crinoline of her grandmother (according to John Leech) had cancelled her grandfather.

Since that time Mr. Boyd has been seen fitfully in _Punch_, and always with drawings executed with great care and with singular appreciation of the value of his blacks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHIL MAY.

(_Drawn by Himself._)]

Then came Mr. Phil May. _Punch_ was long in discovering him, but he found him at last. Indeed, he could not afford to do without him, for Mr. May, though barely more than thirty years of age, was already in the foremost rank of humorous draughtsmen of the day, and few--even of Mr.

Punch's own Staff--were better known and more popular than the young artist who had burst upon the town not long before. He had gone through a hard life as a boy. He had turned his back upon architecture, as Charles Keene, Mr. Moyr Smith, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Bernard Partridge, and other contributors to _Punch_ had done before him, and had joined a strolling company, with whom he strolled and acted for four years, drawing caricatures of his fellow-actors for the shop-windows. He was only fourteen when he began sketching for a Yorks.h.i.+re paper, and four years later he came to town and, after an interval of the direst want, soon made his mark. At that time he had evidently been looking at Mr.

Sambourne's drawings, but a three years' visit to Australia, aided by the bitter experience of Melbourne newspaper printing presses, simplified his style to the point we now see it--in which elimination of all unnecessary lines seems carried to its furthermost limit. Indeed, his "economy of means" borders on parsimony. Gifted with a powerful personality, with the keenest sense of humour, and with strong human sympathies that lean much more to the side of the poor than of the well-to-do, and, above all, with a brilliant power of draughtsmans.h.i.+p, he was recognised as a master as soon as he a.s.serted himself--an original master with many disciples and more imitators. He cannot be called a caricaturist, for in his work there lacks that fierce quality of critical conception--above all, that subject-matter that makes one think, that sardonic appeal to head and heart at once, which make up the sum of true caricature. If caricature is drollery, and not humour, as Carlyle says it is, Mr. May is above all things a humorist, and not at all a droll. He is neither a politician nor a reformer, nor even, if properly understood, a satirist. His aim is to show men and things as they really are, seen through a curtain of fun and raillery--not as they might or ought to be. Yet the essence of his work is inexorable truth, and his version of life is depicted to a delighted public with the unerring pencil of a laughing philosopher. And, moreover, his greatest quality is the astounding excellence of his draughtsmans.h.i.+p, which, so far from being germane to caricature, is not only unnecessary to it, but sometimes even a hindrance.

And so Mr. May began with his "social" cuts for _Punch_, selecting "low life" for the most part, as Mr. du Maurier chose high life, and making for every picture as careful a study from Nature as ever Charles Keene did--and probably as many of them. Furthermore, he prefers to seek out his jokes for himself. When he was in New York and found that the professional joke-purveyor was untrustworthy, he sauntered into a police court in the hope of finding character there, and perhaps humour.

A woman was up before the magistrate on a charge of drunkenness--a charge which the lady denied. "How do you know she was drunk?" asked the magistrate. "She walked into a baker's shop," replied the policeman, "and wanted to buy a bonnet." The evidence was accepted as conclusive; and Mr. May sketched the prisoner there and then, and introduced her into his first drawing for _Punch's_ page as the gutter-woman who, looking over an ill.u.s.trated paper, confides to a friend that the portrait it contains of "Lady Sorlsbury" isn't a bit like what she really is in private life. Mr. May was in due course drawn into _Punch's_ net, and eating his first Dinner in February, 1895, he cut his initials on the Table between those of Thackeray and Mr. du Maurier. The accompanying sketch was the eloquent announcement I received of his promotion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I JOINED THE 'PUNCH' TABLE LAST WEEK, AND CARVED MY NAME ON THE ROLL OF FAME."]

In the Almanac of 1894 two artists new to _Punch_ made their appearance--the first, Mr. Stafford, the quondam cartoonist of "Funny Folks;" and the other, the world-famous humorist "Caran d'Ache" (M.

Emmanuel Poiree), with a satire on the female craze of the day in respect to M. Paderewski and his flowing locks. In November of the same year Mr. Fred Pegram, who had for three years been one of the "Judy"

artists, made his clever appearance in _Punch_, since then several times repeated; and with Mr. W. F. Thomas--the well-known successor of Baxter as the delineator of Ally Sloper and his low but amusing circle--who appeared twice in 1895, I close my list.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STAFF OF _PUNCH_ AT TABLE, 1895.

(_From a flash-light photograph, expressly taken by Van der Weyde._)

MR. A. a. BECKETT.

MR. SAMBOURNE.

SIR JOHN TENNIEL.

MR. BURNAND.

MR. ANSTEY.

MR. LUCY.

MR. E. T. REED.

MR. BERNARD PARTRIDGE.

MR. B. J. MILLIKENS'S PLACE.

MR. PHIL MAY'S PLACE.

MR. LAWRENCE BRADBURY.

MR. DU MAURIER.]

It will thus be seen that with the exception of a very few among the earlier comic draughtsmen, and a half-a-dozen others of our own day, _Punch_ has at one time or another engaged the pencils of all the chief English graphic humorists of his time, and has even persuaded notable artists of more serious turn to try their hand at comic work.

In its artistic aspect, at least, _Punch_ is more than a comic journal: it is, and has been for more than half a century, a school of wood-drawing, of pen and pencil draughtsmans.h.i.+p, and of wood-cutting of the first rank; it is a school of art in itself. The effect of its art-teaching has been widely felt, and on this ground alone its doings must command interest and justify a close examination into its rise and progress. So far, too, as one can foretell, its future is safe. Young men are arising who are capable of carrying on its traditions and of bearing its banner bravely and merrily aloft; and it may safely be a.s.sumed that, just as the Royal Academy sooner or later absorbs the best Outsiders to adorn its circle and keep its vigour green, so _Punch_ will never lack the ablest men to don his cap and motley and shake his jingling bells.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FINALE: A PROBATIONARY DRAWING (UNUSED).

(_By Linley Sambourne._)]