restriction than have other parts of the press. In Bradley's Cartoons there is much interpretation of the widespread aversion to war and of the conviction that war was futile as a solvent of
the world 's troubles. The same freedom of expression in other parts of the press would at least have been deemed " indiscreet.” It has been said that “ the cartoon thrives best in the fertile soil
of democracy ” and thismay perhaps be accepted even in the face of the great uncertainty as to what democracy really is and whether it has anywhere ever been achieved. The illustration
certainly often guides rather than merely reflects public opinion and it does it through the power of interpretation that gives it a prophetic character. If, as has been seen , it seems possible to reconstruct from the pages of Punch the attitude of at least a part of England towards America during the Civil War, the rule works both ways and
Harper 's Weekly well indicates the reciprocal feeling of America
towards England. The press discloses little effort made in either country to remove prejudice and to arrive at a better mutual understanding. If Punch during the recent war showed an im patience with America for not earlier entering the war, but
threw the blame of it on the president, Life showed America and England smoking the pipe of peace.
The press has sometimes been accused of being " anti-social ” in its tendencies and influence because readers on trains and trolleys are absorbed in their newspapers and do not converse with their neighbors. But it is rather to be said that the news
paper enlarges the social circle and that readers thousands of miles apart are by the newspaper brought into oneness of mind or ranged in opposing columns far more effectively than they would be through the chance conversation or the monologuing of those in their immediate physical proximity . It is the illustration in particular that enlarges the social circle and that shows everywhere the tendency towards luxury, views of spacious homes, summer residences , city hotels; distant countries reached by luxurious railway trains and steamer service;
- Two members of the Punch staff have shown the still more extensive
use that may be made of Punch in reconstructing the past. See F. C .
Burnand and A . à Beckett, “ History in Punch ,” Fortnightly Review , July , December, 1886 , n . s. 40: 49 -67, 737 –752, April , 1887, 41: 546 - 557.
