CHAPTER XXVII 



Tom Merry's Cartoons The Rake's Progress Lord Salisbury's 

 Appreciation St Stephen's Saturnalia Great Work by 

 Phil May Death of Gordon Defeat of the Gladstonian 

 Government Joy of Lord Randolph Great Scheme for 

 Provincial Papers Lord Randolph President Grievous 

 Disappointment Lord Randolph and Titles Breakdown of 

 Provincial Scheme Collapse of Stoke Park Club Phil May 

 leaves for Australia I save St Stephen's Review 



I HAD always thought a good deal of the American 

 Puck, with its coloured political cartoons, and in 

 the first week of 1884 we followed on the same line, 

 having secured Tom Merry to do the work. He was a 

 lithographer by trade and a clever rough-and-ready 

 artist. He had been some time on the stage at the halls 

 as a lightning cartoonist, chalking portraits of well-known 

 characters on a board in a minute or two. It used to be 

 an effective " turn." Moreover, from his lithographic 

 work on posters and such-like, Tom Merry had gained 

 an exact knowledge how to hit the public eye from a 

 distance or at fiist glance. Thus it was that he became 

 the really most effective political cartoonist of the day. 

 His work was crude, and people used often to ask me why 

 I allowed such " vulgar " cartoons to be published. I 

 always replied that I meant the cartoons for the public 

 and not for fastidious readers of the paper. In short, the 

 cartoon and the paper were two distinct entities ; and the 

 cartoons were a big factor in many an election. An 

 early sensation was created by the publication of the 

 Rake's Progress Series, representing Mr Gladstone as the 

 Rake, and a complete series of that is now worth a lot of 

 money, for I stopped the production of the third cartoon 

 after only 500 had been printed, feeling sure that it was too 

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