(W. M. R.)
(2) “Cartoon” is also a term now applied to the large political drawings in the humorous or satirical papers of the day. At an earlier period satirical prints were styled “caricatures,” and were issued separately. Gillray, Rowlandson, the three Cruikshanks, Heath and others were popular favourites in this class of design. Even the insignificant little cuts by Robert Seymour in Figaro in London, the diableries in The Fly, and the vulgar and rancorous political skits identified with the flood of scurrilous little papers of the time, were dignified by the same term. The long series of Political Sketches by “H.B.” (John Doyle) were the first examples of unexaggerated statement, and fair and decorous satire. With the advent of Punch and its various rivals (The Peep-Show, The Great Gun, Diogenes and the like), the general tone was elevated. Punch at first adopted the word “pencilling” to describe the “big cut,” which dealt variously with political and social topics. But when in 1843 there was held in Westminster Hall the great exhibition of “cartoons” from which selection was to be made of designs for the decoration in fresco of the new Houses of Parliament, Punch jocularly professed to range himself alongside the great artists of the day; so that the “mad designe” of the reign of Charles I. became the “cartoon” of that of Queen Victoria. John Leech’s drawing in No. 105 of that journal was the first caricature to be called a cartoon: it was entitled “Substance and Shadow: the Poor ask for Bread, and the Philanthropy of the State accords—an Exhibition.” Later, Punch dropped the word for a while, but the public took it up. Yet the New English Dictionary curiously attributes the first use of it to Miss Braddon in 1863.
In England the cartoon, no longer a weapon of venomous attack, has come to be regarded as a humorous or sarcastic comment upon the topic uppermost in the nation’s mind, a witty or saturnine illustration of views already formed, rather than as an instrument for the manufacture of public opinion. It has almost wholly lost its rancour; it has totally lost its ferocity—the evolutionary result of peace and contentment, for satire in its more violent and more spontaneous form is but the outcome of the dissatisfaction or the rage of the multitude. The cartoon, it is agreed, must be suggestive; it must present a clear idea lucidly and, if possible, laughably worked out; and, however reserved or restrained it may be, or even, when occasion demands (as in the case of Sir John Tenniel and some of his imitators), however epic in intuition, it must always figure, so to say, as a leading article transformed into a picture. (See [Caricature] and [Illustration].)
(M. H. S.)
CARTOUCHE (a French word adapted from the Ital. cartoccio, a roll of paper, Med Lat. carta, for charta, paper), originally a roll of paper, parchment or other material, containing the charge of powder and shot for a firearm, a cartridge (q.v.), which itself is a corruption of cartouche. The term was applied in architecture to various forms of ornamentation taking the shape of a scroll, such as the volute of an Ionian capital. It was particularly used of a sculptured tablet in the shape of a partly unrolled scroll on which could be placed an inscription or device. Such “cartouches” are used for titles, &c., on engravings of maps, plans, and the like. The arms of the popes and ecclesiastics of high birth were borne on an oval cartouche; and it is thus particularly applied, in Egyptian archaeology, for the oblong device with oval ends, enclosing the names of royal personages on the monuments. It is properly an oval formed by a rope knotted at one end. An amulet of similar shape, as the symbol of the “name,” was worn by men and women as a protection against the blotting out of the name after death.
CARTRIDGE (corruption of Fr. cartouche), a case, of brass or other metal, cardboard, silk, flannel, &c., containing an explosive charge, and usually the projectile also, for small arms and ordnance (see [Ammunition]).
CARTWRIGHT, EDMUND (1743-1823), English inventor, younger brother of Major John Cartwright (q.v.), was born at Marnham, Nottinghamshire, on the 24th of April 1743, and educated at Wakefield grammar school. He began his academical studies at University College, Oxford, and in 1764 he was elected to a fellowship at Magdalen. In 1770 he published Armine and Elvira, a legendary poem, which was followed in 1779 by The Prince of Peace. In 1779 he was presented to the rectory of Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire, to which in 1786 was added a prebend in the cathedral of Lincoln. He took the degree of D.D. at Oxford in 1806. He would probably have passed an obscure life as a country clergyman had not his attention been accidentally turned in 1784 to the possibility of applying machinery to weaving. The result was that he invented a power-loom, for which he took out a patent in 1785; it was a rude contrivance, though it was improved by subsequent patents in 1786 and 1787, and gradually developed into the modern power-loom. Removing to Doncaster in 1785, he started a weaving and spinning factory; it did not, however, prove a financial success, and in 1793 he had to surrender it to his creditors. A mill at Manchester, in which a number of his machines were installed, was wilfully destroyed by fire in 1791. In 1789 he patented a wool-combing machine, for which he took out further patents in 1790 and 1792; it effected large economies in the cost of manufacture, but its financial results were not more satisfactory to its inventor than those of the power-loom, even though in 1801 parliament extended the patent for fourteen years. In 1807 a memorial was presented to the government urging the benefits that had been conferred on the country by the power-loom, and the House of Commons voted him £10,000 in 1809. He then purchased a small farm at Hollander, near Sevenoaks, Kent, where he spent the rest of his life. He died at Hastings on the 30th of October 1823. Other inventions of Cartwright’s included a cordelier or machine for making rope (1792), and an engine working with alcohol (1797), together with various agricultural implements.