A Group of modern French Caricaturists.
Still another clever cartoon in which the Kladderadatsch summed up the situation at the close of the war shows a map of the eastern hemisphere, distorted into a likeness of a much-perturbed lady, the British Isles forming her coiffure, Europe her arms and body, and Asia the flowing drapery of her skirts. Japan, saw in hand, has just completed the amputation of one of her feet—Formosa—and has the other—Corea—half sawn off. "Does it hurt you up there?" he is asking, gazing up at the European portion of his victim. The same periodical a few months later forcibly called attention to the fact that while France and Russia were both profiting by the outcome of the war, Germany was likely to go away empty-handed. It is entitled "The Partition of the Earth: an Epilogue to the Chinese Loan." China, represented as a fat, overgrown mandarin, squatting comfortably on his throne, serene in the consciousness that his financial difficulties are adjusted for the time being, is explaining the situation to Prince Hohenlohe, who is waiting, basket in hand, for a share of the spoils. On one side Russia is bearing off a toy engine and train of cars, labeled "Manchuria," and on the other France is contentedly jingling the keys to a number of Chinese seaports. "The world has been given away," China is saying; "Kwangtung, Kwangsi, and Yünnan are no longer mine. But if you will live in my celestial kingdom you need not feel any embarrassment; your uselessness has charmed us immensely."
The Boulanger excitement, which so roused France until the bubble was effectually pricked by the lawyer Floquet's fencing sword, was satirized by Judge in a cartoon entitled "The Noisy Boy in the European Lodging House." The scene is a huge dormitory in which the various European powers have just settled down in their separate beds for a quiet night's rest when Boulanger, with a paper cap on his head, comes marching through, loudly beating a drum. In an instant all is turmoil. King Humbert of Italy is shown in the act of hurling his royal boot at the offending intruder. The Czar of Russia has opened his eyes and his features are distorted with wrath. Bismarck is shaking his iron fist. The Emperor of Austria is getting out of bed, apparently with the intention of inflicting dire punishment on the interrupter of his slumbers. Even the Sultan of Turkey, long accustomed to disturbances from all quarters, has joined in the popular outcry. The lodgers with one voice are shouting, "Drat that Boy! Why doesn't he let us have some rest?"
The old allegorical ideal of Christian passing through the dangers of the Valley of the Shadow of Death in Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," which has been appearing in caricature every now and then since Gillray used it against Napoleon, was employed by Tenniel in a cartoon of Mr. Gladstone and Home Rule published in Punch, April 15, 1893. The old warrior, sword in hand, is making his way slowly along the narrow and perilous wall of Home Rule. On either side are the bogs of disaster, suggestive of his fate in case his foot should slip.
The Panama scandals in France and the ensuing revelations of general political trickery suggested one of Sambourne's best cartoons, that depicting France descending into the maelstrom of corruption. This cartoon appeared in the beginning of 1893. It shows France in the figure of a woman going supinely over the rapids, to be hurled into the whirlpool below.
The Anglo-French War Barometer.