Fashoda!!! Fashoda!! Fashoda! Fashoda.
From "Kladderadatsch" (Berlin).
British feeling on the Fashoda affair was summed up by Tenniel in two cartoons which appeared in October and November, in 1898. The first of these called "Quit-Pro Quo?" was marked by a vindictive bitterness which appeared rather out of place in the Punch of the last quarter of the century. But it must be remembered that for a brief time feeling ran very high in both countries over the affair. In this cartoon France is represented as an organ-grinder who persists in grinding out the obnoxious Fashoda tune to the intense annoyance of the British householder. The second cartoon represents the Sphinx with the head of John Bull. John Bull is grimly winking his left eye, to signify that he regards himself very much of a "fixture" in Egypt.
CHAPTER XXX
AMERICAN PARTIES AND PLATFORMS
The dangerous condition in which the United States found itself about the time we began the building of our new and greater navy was depicted in Judge by the cartoon entitled, "Rip Van Winkle Awakes at Last." It shows a white-bearded, white-haired Uncle Sam seated on a rock about which the tide is rapidly rising, looking round at the great modern armaments of England and France and Germany and Italy, and murmuring, as he thinks of his own antiquated wooden ships of war and brick forts, "Why, I'm twenty years behind the age." In his old hat, with the broken crown, are the feathers of Farragut, Perry, Paul Jones, and Lawrence, but these alone are not enough, nor will even the "Spirit of '76," which hovers over him in the shape of an eagle, quite suffice. He has his musket of 1812 and his muzzle-loading gun of 1864, but in the background are those huge cannon of European foes and above them is the gaunt, grim figure of a helmeted Death. A little more and it would have been too late. Now there is yet time. Rip Van Winkle awakes at last.
An interesting variant upon the old type of "Presidential Steeplechase" cartoons appeared in Puck during the summer of 1892, after the Republican convention at Minneapolis and the Democratic convention at Chicago had respectively nominated Mr. Harrison and Mr. Cleveland. The cartoon is entitled "They're Off!" and is drawn with admirable spirit. The scene is a Roman amphitheater, and the two Presidential candidates, in the guise of charioteers, are guiding their mettlesome steeds in a mad gallop around the arena. Mr. Cleveland's horses, "Tariff Reform" and "Economy," are running steadily, and seem to be slowly forging to the front, while those of Mr. Harrison, "High Protection" and "Force Bill," are not pulling well together, and with ears pointed forward, look as though they might at any moment become unmanageable.
Rip Van Winkle wakes at last.
By Gillam in "Judge."