Read Ebook: Abraham Lincoln and the London Punch Cartoons Comments and Poems Published in the London Charivari During the American Civil War (1861-1865) by Walsh William S Editor

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the Institution of Slavery for ever!"

Yet even now, it appealed to both sections to restrain their hands from flying at each other's throats:

ODE TO THE NORTH AND SOUTH

O JONATHAN and JEFFERSON, Come listen to my song; I can't decide, my word upon, Which of you is most wrong. I do declare I am afraid To say which worse behaves, The North, imposing bonds on Trade, Or South, that Man enslaves.

And here you are about to fight, And wage intestine war, Not either of you in the right: What simpletons you are! Too late your madness you will see, And when your passion cools, "Snakes!" you will bellow, "How could we Have been such 'tarnal fools!"

One thing is certain; that if you Blow out each other's brains, 'Twill be apparent what a few Each blockhead's skull contains. You'll have just nothing for your cost, To show, when all is done. Greatness and glory you'll have lost; And not a dollar won.

Oh, joined to us by blood, and by The bond of kindred speech, And further, by the special tie Of slang, bound each to each, All-fired gonies, softhorn'd pair, Each other will you lick? You everlastin' dolts, forbear! Throw down your arms right slick.

You'll chaw each other up, you two, Like those Kilkenny cats, When they had better things to do, Improvin' off the rats. Now come, shake hands, together jog On friendly yet once more; Whip one another not: and flog Creation, as before!

"Well Pam," says Mr. Punch to his workman, "of course I shall keep you on, but you must stick to peace-work."

In this first picture Lincoln is represented as poking the fire and filling the room with particles of soot, saying with downcast look:

"What a nice White House it would be, if it were not for the blacks."

INK, BLOOD AND TEARS

A Forty hours' bombardment! Great guns throwing Their iron hail: shells their mad mines exploding: Furnaces lighted: shot at red-heat glowing: Shore-battr'ies and fort-armament, firing, loading-- War's visible hell let loose for forty hours, And all her devils free to use their powers-- And yet not one man hit, her flag when Sumter lowers.

"Oh, here's a theme!" quoth Punch, of brag abhorrent, "'Twixt promise and performance rare proportion! This show-cloth, of live lions, giving warrant, Masking some mangy, stunted, stuffed abortion: These gorgeous covers hiding empty dishes, These whale-like antics among little fishes-- Here is the very stuff to meet my dearest wishes.

Blood by a brother's hand drawn from a brother-- And they by whom 'tis ta'en, by whom 'tis given, Are both the children of an English mother; Once with that mother, in her wrath, they've striven: Was't not enough, that parricidal jar, But they must now meet in fraternal war? If such strife draw no blood shall England scoff therefore?

The weight sat on my quill: I could not write; The red drops lustered to my pen--in vain; I had my theme--"Brothers that meet in fight, Yet shed no blood!"--my jesting mood turned pain. I thought of all that civil love endears, That civil strife breaks up and rends and sears, And lo! the blood-drops in my pen were changed to tears!

And for the hoarse tongues that those bloody gouts Had found, or seemed to find, upon my ears Came up a gentle song in link?d bouts, Of long-drawn sweetness--pity breathed through tears.

And thus they sang--"'Twas not by chance, Still less by fraud or fear, That Sumter's battle came and closed, Nor cost the world a tear."

KING COTTON BOUND; OR, THE NEW PROMETHEUS.

Far across Atlantic waters Groans in chains a Giant King; Like to him, whom Ocean's daughters Wail around in mournful ring, In the grand old Grecian strains Of PROMETHEUS in his chains!

Needs but Fancy's pencil pliant Both to paint till both agree; For King Cotton is a giant, As PROMETHEUS claimed to be. Each gave blessings unto men, Each dishonour reaped again.

From the gods to sons of clay If PROMETHEUS brought the flame, Who King Cotton can gainsay, Should he equal honour claim? Fire and life to millions giving, That, without him, had no living.

And if they are one in blessing, So in suffering they are one; Both, their captive state confessing, Freeze in frost and scorch in sun: That, upon his mountain chain, This, upon his parching plain.

Nor the wild bird's self is wanting-- Either giant's torment sore; If PROMETHEUS writhed, while panting Heart and lungs the vulture tore, So Columbia's eagle fierce, Doth King Cotton's vitals pierce.

On those wings so widely sweeping In its poise the bird to keep, See, if you can see for weeping. "North" and "South" are branded deep-- On the beak all reeking red, On the talons blood-bespread!

But 'tis not so much the anguish Of the wound that rends his side, Makes this fettered giant languish, As the thought how once, in pride, That great eagle took its stand, Gently on his giant hand!

How to it the meat he'd carry In its mew to feed secure; How he'd fling it on the quarry, How recall it to the lure, Make it stoop, to his caresses, Hooded neck and jingling jesses.

And another thought is pressing, Like hot iron on his brain-- Millions that would fain be blessing, Ban, e'en now, King Cotton's name. Oh, that here those hands are bound, Which should scatter wealth around!

"Not this Eagle's screaming smothers That sad sound across the sea-- Wailing babes and weeping mothers, Wailing, weeping, wanting me. Hands that I would fain employ, Hearts that I would fill with joy!

"Welcome even such releasing, Fain my work I'd be about: Soon would want and wail be ceasing, Were King Cotton once let out-- Though all torn and faint and bleeding, Millions still I've strength for feeding."

OUR DEAR BROTHER JONATHAN

This delightful ebullition of fervent brotherly love has most fittingly appeared in a Philadelphia paper:--

"It may be, in view of all these grave considerations and the sad necessities of the case, that, in order to avoid a war which could only end in our discomfiture, the Administration may be compelled to concede the demands of England, and perhaps release MESSRS. MASON and SLIDELL. God forbid!--but in a crisis like this we must adapt ourselves to stern circumstances, and yield every feeling of pride to maintain our existence. If this contingency should ever arise--and I am only speculating upon a disagreeable possibility--then let us swear, not only to ourselves but our children who come after us, to repay this greedy, insolent, and cowardly Power with the retribution of a just and fearful vengeance. If England in our time of distress makes herself our foe, and offers to be our assassin, we will treat her as a foe when we can do so untrammeled and unmenaced by another enemy."

"Greedy, insolent, and cowardly," these are nice fraternal terms; and what a truly loving spirit is evinced by swearing "fearful vengeance" upon the "assassin," and handing to posterity the keeping of the oath!

No whit less affectionate in feeling is what follows:--

"If we do concede the demands of England, however, it will only be because we desire to crush this rebellion, as a duty we owe to mankind. It will be because we prefer to master the great evil, and do not wish to be alienated from our duty by an international and comparatively unimportant quarrel; it will be because we prefer national salvation to the gratification of any feeling of national pride. It will be a great act of self-denial. But when we come from this rebellion it will be with a magnificent army, educated and organised, and with the sense of this wrong weighing upon them. It will be with a navy competent to meet any navy upon the globe. It will be for us then to remember how England was our enemy in the day of our misfortune, and to make that remembrance a dark and fearful page of her history, and an eternal memory of our own."

That these are the opinions of most people in America nobody on this side of the Atlantic will believe. But that there are roughs and rowdies in the States, who as they have nothing they can lose by war are always full of bluster and warlike in their talk, this may any one in England very easily conceive. Of course it is to please them that such stuff as we have quoted is stuck in Yankee newspapers; and our sole surprise is that the journals which admit it find it pays them so to do. The rowdies as a rule are not overflushed with wealth and can ill afford to spend their coppers upon literature, which, the chances are, they scarcely would know how to read.

A WARNING TO JONATHAN;

OR, "DOTH HE WAG HIS TAIL?"

With your bounce and your bunkum you've pelted him often, Good humoured he laughed as the missiles flew by, Hard words you've employed, which he ne'er bid you soften, As knowing your tallest of talk all my eye.

When you blustered he still was content with pooh-poohing, When you flared up he just let the shavings burn out: He knew you were fonder of talking than doing, And Lions for trifles don't put themselves out.

But beware how you tempt even leonine patience, Or presume the old strength has forsaken his paw: He's proud to admit you and he are relations, But even relations may take too much law.

If there's one thing he values, 'tis right of asylum; Safe who rests 'neath the guard of the Lion must be: In that shelter the hard-hunted fugitive whilome Must be able to sleep the deep sleep of the free.

Then think twice, and think well, ere from guard of the Lion Those who seek his protection you try to withdraw: Though STOWELL and WHEATEN and KENT you rely on, There are points on which Lions won't listen to jaw.

Remember in time the old tale of the showman, Who his head in the mouth of the Lion would sheath, Till with lengthened impunity, bold as a Roman, He seemed to forget that the Lion had teeth.

But the time came at last, when all risks madly scorning, He went just too far down that road rough and red, When, with only one wag of his tail for a warning, Snap went Leo's jaws, and off went BARNUM'S head!

This was followed up on December 14th, with one of Tenniel's finest cartoons, that entitled "Waiting for an Answer."

Two amusing bits of doggerel appeared in the same number, one representing the British nation's view of the international episode.

MRS. DURDEN ON THE AMERICAN DIFFICULTY

"Them there nasty good-for-nothing Yankees!" cried old MRS. DURDEN, "Worrits me to that degree, it makes my life almost a burden. Board our mail and seize our passengers, the ribbles! Goodness, gracious! Like their imperence to be sure; 'tis that what makes 'em so owdacious.

"What next now I wonder, Captain?" Answer CAPTAIN SKIPPER made, "Well Ma'am, our next move, I fancy, will be breaking their blockade." "Blockhead! Ah!" exclaimed the lady. "Truer word was never spoken. Drat the blockheads, all says I; may every head on 'em be broken!"

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