“SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.”
THE CHIEF MOURNERS
An ingenious romancer on the staff of the Mail, had, some months before this, concocted a “scandal” at the expense of Hon. Archibald McKellar, a member of the Ontario Cabinet. The story—which was regarded from the first as a joke—was to the effect that Mr. McKellar had purchased for his official apartment a portrait of an unknown lady. This imputation of gallantry to the bucolic Minister—a man in all respects the reverse of the ideal knight—was what constituted the “point.” The alleged picture soon took its place in the armory of the Opposition and was constantly referred to as that of “Little Mrs. Blank.” In the Public Accounts Committee about the date of our cartoon, explanations were made by Messrs. Ewing & Co., from whom certain pictures had been purchased, which completely killed this pleasant fiction, and “Little Mrs. Blank” was no more. The leading Members of the Opposition—Messrs. M. C. Cameron, A. Boultbee, C. J. Rykert and A. W. Lauder—were supposed by the artist to have been much cast-down at the sudden demise of such a valuable auxiliary.
Grip, September 12th, 1874.
THE CHIEF MOURNERS.