The present Punch artists have greatly the advantage of Leech, in respect of the aid derivable from photography. In these days, there is scarcely a statesman whose photograph cannot be seen in the London shop-windows, to the great advantage of the political caricaturists of to-day. It was only at the latter part of Leech's time that photography became so generally used to familiarize us with the features of our legislators, and even then I doubt if Leech took much advantage of it. He had seen all these men, and a rough sketch in his note-book, aided by his marvellous memory, was sufficient to enable him to produce unmistakable likenesses.
It remains for me to note some of the instances in which Leech's powers were brought to bear upon the social questions of the time—questions admitting of a humorous or a pathetic treatment, apart from those of a merely political character.
In 1850 a motion by Lord Ashley, afterwards Shaftesbury, was carried against the Government by a majority of ninety-three to sixty-eight, ordering that the transmission and delivery of letters on Sunday should cease in all parts of the kingdom. The new law was acted upon for some weeks, and caused so much public inconvenience, and so great and indignant a popular outcry, that the obnoxious rules were rescinded. Leech took full advantage of the opportunity thus afforded him. His ready imagination supplied him with instances in which the operation of the new law would cause loss and suffering. This was shown in a drawing which, amongst other proofs, depicts a mother in great distress because she can have no news of her sick child. And when, in September, 1850, the obnoxious regulation was withdrawn, Leech celebrated the event in an admirable cartoon, in which the promoters, Lords Russell and Ashley, dressed as Puritans, are ruefully contemplating each other, Russell addressing his fellow-Puritan with, "Verily, Brother Ashley, between you and me and the post we have made a nice mess of it!"
The neglect of our troops during the Crimean campaign afforded the artist many humorous and tragic subjects. The Government was accused, rightly or wrongly, of many sins of omission and commission; amongst the rest, of not providing the army with clothing suitable to the terrible winter which it was sure to have to pass in front of Sebastopol. And one of Leech's most telling drawings represents two ragged soldiers shivering in the snow. One tells the other that news has arrived of a medal that is to be awarded. "Yes," says his comrade; "but they had much better send us a coat to put it on."
Two pictures may be noted—one by Tenniel, which is infinitely pathetic, the other by Leech, ghastly in its contrast to the humorous side of the author's powers. The first represents a fashionable lady, whose magnificent ball-dress has just been fitted upon her by the dressmaker, who says:
"We would not have disappointed your ladyship at any sacrifice, and the robe is finished À MERVEILLE."
But the sacrifice! The lady turns to the looking-glass, wherein she sees the dress, and part of the cost of making it, in the appalling figure of the workwoman, whose haggard form leans back exhausted, dully lighted by a dying lamp, by the help of which all night long the lady has not been "disappointed."
"The Jew and Skeleton Tailors."