Third Hielan'man.—"Neither tit I, too!"
We must not omit to mention Ashby Sterry as one of the staff, and a contributor to Fun's pages of much graceful verse. He is well known for his volume, "Lays of a Lazy Minstrel." Then, Charles H. Leland, who gained considerable reputation as the genial Dutchman, Hans Breitmann. This gentleman contributed very liberally to the "Comic Annual." He is one of the most affable and interesting men it has been our good fortune to be associated with. He was full of entertaining anecdote, a true artist and no mean draughtsman—in appearance, a giant, in manner as simple as a child. On one occasion in America he asked a negro the name of a black man of rather fine physique and superior appearance, who was standing near.
"He Injun," replied the nigger; "he big Injun; he heap big Injun; he dam heap big Injun; he dam mighty great heap big Injun; He Jones." Jones appeared to be the nigger's culminating pinnacle of greatness!
Godfrey Turner, one of the talented young men who, in the early days, did so much towards placing the Daily Telegraph in the high position which it attained among the London morning papers, worked very constantly upon Fun, as well as on the "Comic Annual." Poor fellow! a protracted illness, generally attributed to overwork, incapacitated him during the last two or three years of his life.
Dutton Cook's short stories appeared constantly in the "Annual"—among his very last work being one he wrote for that periodical. Nor must we omit to mention Leman Blanchard, who was the author of more Christmas pantomimes than can well be counted. He did this work for Drury Lane under F. B. Chatterton, and then Sir Augustus Harris, for many years, as well as for many of the Provincial theatres. The able and accomplished editor of Sketch, John Latey, also was one of our most-esteemed contributors.
Henry J. Byron did much good work for Fun under Hood, but he retired from the staff on commencing a paper of his own, under the title of the Comic News, which unfortunately for the proprietor had but a short existence.
Frank Barrat, Manville Fenn, Austin Dobson, Byron Webber, Moy Thomas, H. C. Newton, and Christie Murray, are the names of others whose work frequently appeared in Fun and the "Comic Annual."
On the death of Tom Hood we complied with his dying request and placed the "Bauble" in the hands of Henry Sampson, who had been a constant fellow worker with Hood for some two or three years previous. One of the first things Sampson did was to introduce George R. Sims upon the staff. It is superfluous for us to comment upon Sims' great ability as a dramatist, a writer of short stories and sympathetic ballads, because the voices of the reading and the play-going world have already proclaimed their high appreciation of his genius. Suffice it to say that it was in the pages of Fun that he found his first opportunity of appearing in print.
In 1893 when Fun passed out of our hands, he alluded to us in the Referee, with which he had long been associated under the nom de plume of "Dagonet," in the following kind words: