The Strand Magazine/Volume 3/Issue 17/TQS
The Queer Side of Things.
"THE RETALIATOR."
had often wondered how public men felt on opening their comic paper and seeing some atrocious caricature of themselves, and my curiosity, gathering force as time passed, at length oppressed me to such an extent as to render me incapable of other thoughts length, after a sleepless night, I determined to satisfy, if possible, that devouring curiosity. At five a.m. I came to the decision to go and ask the public men; and, the decision once arrived at, my eagerness was such that, after another hour of intense longing, I dressed myself hurriedly and went out to make my first call.
"Reposing on the root of a tree."
I have intentionally suppressed all names in the following report, being anxious to avoid wounding any susceptibilities; and an impenetrable veil of disguise is therefore thrown the identity of those of whom over there is occasion to treat. My first act was to take the train for North Wales, in order to effect an interview with Mr. G— whom I had the good fortune to find reposing upon the root of a tree, an axe by his side. While I tendered my question he fixed upon me a severe yet attentive eye; then, while a harrowing expression of profound and over-powering mental pain too potent for words passed over his face, he replied:
"You ask how we feel. While disclaiming all authority to express or delineate, and indeed any sort of warrant or justification in expressing or delineating, the mental and moral sensations or experiences of others under the circumstances to which you so pointedly and unequivocally refer in your inquiry, I may tell you that (although I usually conceal my emotion behind that dignified reserve so essential to the decorous conduct and development of a political career), that I feel that mad with 'em that I could—" and his hand wandered significantly to the axe. "What I hate," he said, warming to his subject, "what I hate is to be represented with wide trousers as stiff as boards, and with an enormous nose perpetually in the air; though I'm not sure that I have any less aversion to being always drawn with very narrow trousers covered with angular creases over the boots, which are horribly wrinkled, and invariably turned out as in the fifth position; and my arms fixed (as no human arm ever was fixed) on to shoulders forming a perfect right angle, and my features woolly with an infinity of microscopic lines; and I hate to have my face composed entirely of coarse lines, and marked by an invariable expression of wild astonishment, and surrounded by hair like snakes; but what I loathe worst of all is to be reduced to two black dots and two acute angles—that's the most maddening thing of the whole lot!"
He stopped for breath, panting with long pent-up sense of wrong.
"But, if you'll swear solemnly, on this chip, to breathe a word of it to no living creature, I'll tell you something a great secret. We—the public men, I mean—have held a quiet meeting on this very subject, and we've decided to take the matter into our own hands, and defend ourselves. We have conceived a plan for protection, not unamplified by revenge, and we're taking steps to carry it out—but here's Sally coming across the grass; he's in it, of course, and he'll tell you all about it."
Turning, I perceived approaching, with ponderous tread, the Marquis of S———, who presently seated himself weightily upon a large fallen trunk, breaking it.
"Look here, Sally," said Mr. G———, "this young man wants to know all about our Public Men's Mutual Protection and Revenge Union"
"Hum! State secret!" began Lord S———; but, perceiving it was all right, he turned to me, and said: "They're at it again this week—more atrocious than ever! There I am, sir, in one of the cartoons, perfectly spherical, with my clothes tense with horizontal wrinkles, and looking as if I were about to burst, and with my nose in the air as usual; and there I am again with legs just as thin as G———'s here, and in a pair of trousers made by the same tailor, and having a mass of wrinkles over the boots, just like his; as if he and I had only one pair of trousers between us! And there I am again, like a football, with no legs to speak of, and"
"Pooh! what's that? Trivial, compared with the tortures I undergo!" thundered a voice behind me; and there stood Sir W——— H——— "I tell you solemnly, Sally, that I appear in one paper this week with no less than seventeen distinct chins—seventeen, sir! It's disgraceful—it's maddening—I'll commit suicide!"
"That's better than being represented like a collection of clothes-props," said Mr. B——— (arriving at that moment), in a voice tremulous with emotion. Those who have represented Mr. B——— as phlegmatic and unsusceptible should have seen him as I saw him at that pathetic moment! "With legs, gentlemen," he continued, clasping his forehead, "of exactly the same thickness as the golf stick I am supposed to invariably carry!"
"Well, young man," said the Marquis of S———, turning to me, "our plan is maturing, and almost ready to burst upon the crew of caricaturists, scattering destruction and dismay in their confounded midst. We have, each of us, secured the services of—but show him yours, G———; that is, if he isn't too savage."
Mr. G——— led the way toward the back yard of the house. As we approached we became conscious of a low growling, intensifying as we approached. "Do not be apprehensive," said Mr. G———, throwing open the gate of the yard, "he is chained."
"Confound every one of you!"
At the sight of us a wild figure sprang forward with an angry yell, but was fortunately checked by the stout chain which it strained to its utmost tension: it shook its fist at us menacingly, shouting angrily, "Confound every one of you—I'll take you off before you know where you are! Just stand like that—yah!—head a little more round. I'll caricature every man jack of you—such guys! Aha! oho! Noses as big as your bodies, and fangs for teeth! Confound you!"
The ground all around him was littered with wild caricature sketches of all sorts of persons—the stable-boy who brought his food, Mr. G——— himself, and his friends and others.
"There, sir," said Mr. G——— "that's what I'm preparing for them: that's the rod I have in pickle! My private caricaturist, sir; Sally and the rest of us have one each,"
"But what do you purpose to do with him?" I asked.
"Do with him?" said Mr. G———. "Why, set him on to the caricaturists of the papers who caricature me, of course; to rend them—pictorially—limb from limb."
"But why do you keep him chained up?"
"To make him savage, of course. Sometimes we keep him without food for a day or two, and then his productions are severe, I can tell you—every one of us comes out as a demon, with horn and a pitchfork. Regularly every morning we tickle him with straws, trow pepper over him to make him sneeze, and make faces at him; and when he really is vexed he's a sight to see. Just come outside, and I'll show you a dummy of the first number of the new magazine we intend to bring out—The Retaliator."
"The servant announced a gentleman."
It was some weeks after the foregoing occurrences that I was conversing with an eminent caricaturist, when the servant announced that a gentleman wished to speak with him. On the visitor being shown up, I could not help a feeling of recognition which told me that I had seen him before, although I could not remember where. He had come to interview the eminent caricaturist; and, while he conversed persuasively with him and drew him out, I observed that he kept a glittering eye fixed penetratingly upon the object of his interview; nothing about my friend the caricaturist seemed to escape him; and when at length he arose with an air of triumph, and retired towards the door, he suddenly whipped out a small sketch-book and dashed in a rapid sketch of the eminent one.
"Going to put my portrait in too?" asked the latter. The appalling intensity of the gleam in the visitor's eye absolutely held me spellbound, as he hissed "Yes!" then he was gone. Then at last a revelation flashed upon me, and a tear rose to my eye as I thought of the fate of my acquaintance the caricaturist—the fate, hanging, like an invisible sword, over his yet unconscious head; and, when I bade him good-bye a short time after, I felt that I was squeezing his hand in silent sympathy. I could not bring myself to tell him the awful truth; it would have choked me.
Next week the first number of The Retaliator appeared, and in its midst a fearful caricature of my acquaintance the eminent caricaturist.
Instantly I hurried to his studio to learn the worst, and found him lying back in an easy-chair, limp like a wet rag, his glazed eyes fixed upon the hideous caricature. He did not know me at first, but gazed round in a dazed way, and asked for a soda and brandy. Then he gradually came to, and we sat staring hopelessly at each other.
"Limp like a wet rag."
"Cruel!" was all he could murmur for some time.
"What shall you do?" I asked, taking his hand in mine.
"I don't know. It is a terrific blow. I am not used to it. I am not prepared to be caricatured. It never, never struck me that the thing was possible, you know—didn't know it could be done. Why—hang it—I'm a caricaturist!"
He had no heart for his work, poor fellow; he had to knock off and go round to the club and have seven whisky-and-sodas.
The occurrence sent a chill of apprehension through the whole caricaturist profession. The caricaturists met at the clubs, and in the studios, and whispered apprehensively in knots; they began to grow pale and worn, and a cloud seemed to hover over their spirits. Then next week came out the second number of The Retaliator, containing a cartoon of another eminent caricaturist, even more crushing than the former one. Every point about its victim was exaggerated to a pitch that numbed the observer with horror; the ignorant public began to snigger at the expense of the profession; and every member of the latter knew that his fate was sealed—that, sooner or later, his turn was to come. The profession was disorganised and demoralised; the graphic and satiric pencil vibrated in the nerveless hand of the comic artist, or dropped helplessly from it.
"The caricaturists whispered apprehensively."
Actions for libel were wildly talked of in cartoonist circles—actions for libel—tort—breach of promise—anything.
All this while, at all times of the day and night, in all places likely or unlikely, under all circumstances, mysterious and gliding figures were to be dimly seen, sketch-book in hand, dogging the footsteps of the caricaturists, studying their gait manner and habits. On all sorts of pretexts, suspicious strangers would call at the abode of comic artists to spy out the land—to do a bit of plumbing, look at the gasmeter, measure for clothes and boots, tune the piano, beg on behalf of a charity. The caricaturist was never for a moment secure, sleeping or waking; until he trembled at the opening of a door or the ringing of a bell. It was a terrible state of things, not unlike the great plague.
Then caricatures began to appear in The Retaliator of their relations—their mothers, and aunts, and cousins. Several caricaturists emigrated, some sank under it, some became hopelessly imbecile and had to retire to asylums. The page for the cartoon in the comic paper appeared as a blank sheet week after week, no new spirit being found bold enough to take up the pencil dropped from the old hand. At last the only caricatures which appeared were those in The Retaliator. It was, indeed, tragic.
"Mr. G's collars actually increased daily in size."
Then there came about a result which all observant thinkers had foreseen: untrammelled by the salutary check of wholesome satire, freed from the beneficent curb of pictorial criticism, fearing no longer the reflection of that mirror of humorous delineation which, by magnifying, more effectually emphasises faults and weaknesses of style and deportment, our public men began to embrace those extravagances against whose graphic delineations they had formerly murmured. Mr. G—'s collars actually increased daily in size, and his eyes became daily more like black dots in very perverse ecstasy of triumphant defiance; while he ventured, on one occasion, to actually appear in his place in the House, armed with an enormous axe; Sir W——— H———, in the arrogant joy of unflagellated licence, added daily to his chins and his luxurious prodigality of perimetry; Mr. B— revelled ever increasingly in a wanton extravagance of irresponsible tenuity and length which threatened to surpass the wildest efforts of the suppressed caricaturist; the weight of the Marquis of S——— increased to tons; Mr. Ch——— habitually wore the lens of a railway lamp for an eyeglass, and covered himself completely with orchids; and Lord R——— C——— attained a reckless and over-weening diminutiveness, bordering on invisibility, and wholly incompatible with a wealth of moustache absolutely preposterous in its prodigality.
Public affairs were coming to a standstill, as the mania of physical hyperbole wholly absorbed the minds of our statesmen; nor was the epidemic confined to political circles—bishops, actors, judges, all those whose vocation or opportunities presented them more or less before the public, suffered from the removal of the moderating hand of beneficent caricature.
As for the judges, they became all wig, nose, and spectacles, to the entire disappearance of the judge; thin public men attained to an arrogance of attenuation as unreasonable as it was repellent; fat ones became spherical in the unrestrained jubilation of the new-found licence.
This state of things could not go on long. It simply meant ruin—effacement—chaos: one by one those public men began to vaguely feel that this was so. I called at H———tf———ld (the princely residence of the Marquis of S—) one evening, and found them holding high revel—a sort of masque, a pandemonium. At the end of a great hall sat Lord S———, holding aloft a huge stage-goblet, while at his feet crouched his comic artist, in cap and bells, entertaining his master by drawing wild caricatures of all comers; Mr. G——— hovered about the apartment, cutting off the mouldings of the oak panelling, and gashing the picture-frames with a ponderous axe, while his collar trailed along the floor and tripped everybody up; Sir W——— H——— (to admit whom, the door being too narrow, a large piece of the wall had to be taken down) occupied three large chairs, and had a special footman to attend to each of his chins; Lord R——— Ch———, but the scene was too terrible to describe. It will linger for ever in the memory of the horrified observer.
Suddenly the Marquis of S——— paused in the wild and hyperbolic revel; his goblet fell crashing from his hand on to the head of his comic artist, crushing him flat.
"Gommie, old boy," he said, solemnly, and in a voice whose vibrations echoed to the uttermost limits of the hall; "It's too hot! IT WON'T DO!"
Mr. G——— paused in his wild work of havoc. He smote thrice on his breast. "NO!" he said, slowly—hollowly.
****
The That very day The Retaliator was suppressed; and a short Bill was passed offering a handsome annuity to all caricaturists who would come back and resume their function of satirising public men. The latter, wise before it was too late—awakening to the truth in the very nick of time—had grasped the fact of the need of hostile caricature for the restraining of those fatal vagaries of deportment and aspect which public men, free from all salutary restraint, would carry to a pitch which makes one shudder to contemplate. It is all right again now—the public satirists are instated, and receive an honorarium from the Government.
"But just think what we might have come to," murmured Lord S———, in a voice tremulous with horror.
"Ah-h!" whispered Mr. G———, his bosom too full for words.
J. F. Sullivan
From a Photo by Pedro Momini, Tandil.
ROCKING-STONE, TANDIL, BUENOS AYRES.
This prodigious stone is movable at the slightest touch, but a team of bullocks have failed to stir it from its place.
A CANDID CRITIC.
"HOW DO YOU LIKE MY PORTRAIT OF THE JUDGE?"
"HOW MUCH IS HE GOING TO GIVE YOU FOR IT?"
"WHAT DO YOU THINK HE OUGHT TO GIVE ME?"
"SIX MONTHS!"
"UNPLEASANTNESS."
"WOTDJER GIVE WARNIN' FUR?"
"WY, MISSIS SHE MAKES SO MUCH UNPLEASANTNESS.
I CAN'T POKE A 'OLE IN A PICTURE, NOR SMASH A BIT
O' OLD CHINA, NOT DROP A KNOB O' COAL ON THE BABY'S
'ED, BUT WOT SHE TELLS ME ABOUT IT!"