_PUCK, May 25th, 1881._
Mr. Conkling’s resignation to the Senate, in hope of re-election under
circumstances which would have made such a triumph a severe rebuke to
President Garfield, proved to be, as most people foresaw, the end of
his political career. But, at the time, there were plenty of people to
applaud his act and to liken his resignation to a “bombshell” thrown
into the Senate. It was a sort of fireworks bombshell that destroyed
nothing but itself, but it made a great noise for the moment. Mr. T. C.
Platt chose at the same time to pop his toy balloon, and probably
thought that it made part of the noise.
[Illustration]
PUCK’S POLITICAL HUNTING GROUND.--HOW HE HAS MADE GAME OF THE
POLITICIANS.
_PUCK, January 14th, 1885._
The first cartoons were doubtless chalked on dead walls, and even when
the art reached a higher development, sticking to walls remained the
cheapest and most convenient method of publication. It is often a test
of a cartoon’s worth to-day--its suitability as a wall-decoration.
It is a natural and simple impulse that moves us to pin on the wall
the picture that has pleased us. Readers of PUCK who travel much in
this country can not but notice how many people delight in pasting
and pinning their favorite cartoons to the walls of their offices
and workshops, and even of their dwelling-houses. A really popular
cartoon is always sure of these humble but well-meant honors; and,
curiously enough, experience has shown that next to the really telling
“hit,” a playful, familiarly puzzling trifle like “PUCK’S Political
Hunting-Ground,” if it is conceived with some grace and prettiness, is
the most certain of this sort of popular favor. This particular picture
was, no doubt, made attractive to many by the simple puzzle afforded by
the faces of the animals. As, however, the passing of time must make
some of these faces unfamiliar, it may be well to offer the following
key--first calling attention to the fact that all the personages
introduced were at the moment, in one way or another, at odds with
fortune--except the late Mr. Jay Gould, who is figured as a bird of
prey (in a general way, and with no over-particular ornithological
accuracy) comfortably bearing off a lamb. The fact that this one figure
of success is quite unconscious of the attempts of PUCK’S water-dog
to catch him, may be supposed to show the usual disregard that Wealth
entertains for Wit:
The fox, of course, is the ingenious Mr. James G. Blaine. The hyena,
ex-speaker Kiefer, and the next animal of doubtful breed “Star Route”
or “Soap” Dorsey. The paw and the head seen in the reeds behind the
dog belong to Brady. The lineaments of Ben Butler may be discerned in
the head of the frog, and the nature of the beast in the distention of
the belly thereof. At the other end of the cartoon, General Grant’s
features, without distortion or caricature, fit the head of the dead
lion. Next to him “Secor” Robeson lies in the similitude of a dead
boar, incapable of mischief for all his glaring eye-balls. In the
foreground, Roscoe Conkling lies a dead pouter pigeon. (Caricaturists
frequently showed Mr. Conkling as a pouter pigeon, but most of them
carried the analogy too far and made a frail, spindle-shanked thing
of him. In this picture the thickly feathered legs and stout frame of
the bird do not bely its sturdy original.) The owl is the late John
Kelly--and a powerful and accurate owl he was, too, in his time! The
pendent monkey is T. C. Platt, who was at that time suffering from one
of the temporary eclipses which flecked the pathway of the political
adventurer with appropriate forecasts of oblivion.
[Illustration]