When Raemaekers pictures Von Tirpitz to us, he does so with savage
scorn. He is not the hard-bitten pirate of story--but a senile,
crapulous, lachrymose imbecile; an object of derision. He fits more with
one of Jacob's tales of longshore soakers, than with the tragedies that
have made him infamous. But when he draws Von Tirpitz's victims, the
touch is one of almost harrowing tenderness. The Hun is a master of many
modes of killing, but however torn, or twisted, or tortured he leaves
the murdered, Raemaekers can make the dreadful spectacle bearable by the
piercing dignity with which he portrays the dead. In none of these
cartoons is his _saeva indignatio_ rendered with more sheer beauty of
design, or with a craftsmanship more exquisite, than in this monument to
the sea-mined prey. The symbolism is perfect, and of the essence of the
design. The dead sink slowly to their resting-place, but the merciful
twilight of the sea veils from us the glazed horror of the eyes that no
piety can now close. Even the dumb, senseless fish shoots from the scene
in mute and terrified protest, while from these poor corpses there rise
surfaceward the silver bubbles of their expiring breath. One seems to
see crying human souls prisoned in these spheres. And it is, indeed,
such sins as these that cry to Heaven for vengeance. Blood-guiltiness
must rest upon the heads of those that do them, upon the heads of their
children--aye, and of their children's children too. This exquisite and
tender drawing is something more than the record of inexpiable crime. It
is a prophecy. And the prophecy is a curse.