change had been carried so far that complaint was made that “ our good -natured cartoons on bosses and their legislative henchmen are the reflection of our criminal good nature to evils in public life. A sharper civic consciousness should make the
cartoonist's pen dig in deeper.” 40 Thus the cartoon , like the photograph , the sketch , and the caricature , carries with it its own limitations, for the cartoonist shows in his work the samepersonal characteristics as are shown by those who express their ideas through words. If he is by nature a fighter, he does his best work under high tension ; if he is an onlooker in life , his work shows detachment; if he is a satirist, the sting points his pencil. All of these personal equations
the historian must consider and weigh in the newspaper artist as well as in the writer .41 What is to be the attitude of the historian towards the illus
tration considered collectively as well as by its various classes? If it is an epitomeof the press as a whole, it must follow that the same general tests for authoritativeness must be applied to it
as are applied to the various parts of the press , although they must vary somewhat since they must be applied both to the means by which the illustration is made and also to the subject of the illustration.
The illustration is a most prolific source of error, but many of the minor errors, like those made by the local reporter, are amusing in themselves, and do not seriously militate against
their general reliability . Some of them are due to carelessness,42 40 New York Evening Post, June 30 , 1913 . — It seems probable that the writer was in reality referring to the caricature rather than to the cartoon . The same point has been elaborated by W . S . Jackson who finds much embroidery but few ideas in the work of contemporary artists . — “ Wanted
a Gillray," Nineteenth Century and After , September, 1910 , 68 : 522-531. 4A penetrating discussion of “ The Art of Political Cartoons" is found in the Literary Supplement of the London Times, March 4 , 1920 .
43 A cartoon in Punch, April 12, 1845, was entitled “ Who's Afraid ? or the Oregon Question ;" the drawing on the block had not been reversed so that Unidentified Contributions of W . M . Thackeray to “ Punch ," pp . 11- 12. The drawing is there reproduced .
John Leech in speaking of W . P . Frith 's Derby Day could not understand how in so careful a work he had missed one of the most notable facts at such places, - not a person in the crowd was represented as smoking a pipe or a
cigar. - The Brothers Dalziel, A Record of Fifty Years'Work, p . 44 .
