PUCK, June 28th, 1882.
Many who look at this cartoon to-day may well wonder what called it forth, and many others may have to be reminded that even so recently as ten years ago a morbid sympathy with criminals was so common among American clergymen that it was popularly held a reproach to the whole clerical body. It was, however, little more than a passing phase, a sort of hysterical epidemic that prevailed among people peculiarly exposed to emotional impulses. It seems to have died a natural death, and it has passed away so utterly that it is practically forgotten to-day.
We do not speak, of course, of the sympathy which every minister of God should feel for the erring and unfortunate, but of a certain maudlin enthusiasm which at one time moved many otherwise excellent and admirable members of the clerical profession, and brought about some startling exhibitions of misplaced sentiment. At the period of which we speak, namely: the decade prior to the publication of this cartoon, it was no uncommon thing to read of a clergyman, assisted by a band of female devotees, invading a prison to spend hours, day after day, in consoling, comforting, and generally coddling some red-handed murderer in whom they could have had no possible interest, and of whom they never would have heard save for the notoriety of his trial. Clergymen were found, too, to go on the gallows at the last moment, and publicly to avow their belief that the soul of the criminal about to die was purged of all earthly sin, and that his repentance with the noose around his neck had fully sufficed to fit him for heaven. Such shows as these were common enough and evil enough in their influence to justify even severer condemnation than that expressed in this vigorous cartoon.
The mania, for such we must call it, probably had its origin in the extravagant and widely advertised efforts of the Rev. Dr. Tyng, of New York, to save Foster, the “Carhook Murderer,” from the gallows. Foster, who was partially drunk at the time, wantonly killed an inoffensive stranger on the 26th of April, 1871; and, after every legal resource had been exhausted in his behalf, was hanged March 21st, 1873.
This cartoon appeared in Puck of June 28th, 1882, and its immediate occasion was the execution of Charles Guiteau for the assassination of President Garfield, which created a most unwholesome excitement in many quarters.
“PROHIBITION IS COMING!”
PUCK, August 4th, 1886.
“The State of Rhode Island has recently passed—to its own great surprise—a ‘prohibition law.’ The state did not really want the law. It was not passed as a matter of principle. The Republicans voted for the law to spite the Democrats; the Democrats to spite the Republicans. No one thought that the aggregate of votes thus cast would make the legal majority. But so it happened. Now, the State of Rhode Island is a small community, and, like most small communities, it is narrow, ignorant, and, save in things material, unproductive. One of the chief sources of revenue upon which it depends is its wonderful collection of Summer watering-places, which bring travel and traffic to the state and put many thousands of dollars into circulation every year. These places are supported by a civilized lot of people from the great cities—people who are accustomed to drinking wine and beer and whatever else they fancy; and, as a rule, in moderation. If they find that the new law interferes with their perfectly legitimate customs in this regard, they will leave Rhode Island for some more liberal and sensible state; and Rhode Island will be so much the poorer, and so much the wiser. No decent man will submit to be put in the category of criminals because a few hysterical women and unbalanced men think that the use of alcohol is as much a crime as its abuse.”—Puck, August 4th, 1886.