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Plate Number Twenty-four—This cartoon, "Extremes Meet," was published in Punch, on October 24, 1868. The Polish insurrection was then in progress, and the American President and the Russian Czar are depicted triumphantly clasping hands in the foreground of an impressive picture of rapine and desolation. The result sought by the artist is made clear in the appended dialogue:
Abe—Imperial son of Nicholas the Great,
We air in the same fix, I calculate,
You with your Poles, with Southern rebels, I,
Who spurn my rule and my revenge defy.
Alex—Vengeance is mine, old man; see where it falls.
Behold yon hearths laid waste, and ruined walls,