Sr STEPHEN'S SATURNALIA 287 



Phil May and I did " The Forty Thieves," in Pantomime 

 style, Mr Gladstone being, of course, Cassim and Lord 

 Salisbury Ali Baba. Mr Chamberlain was the captain 

 of the forty thieves, who were members of the Ministry 

 and Parnellites. Lord Randolph was Ganem, and so on. 



The final scene, when the thieves are destroyed with the 

 boiling oil of " General Election," is very effective in 

 Phil May's full-page drawing. Ganem has just cut off 

 the head of Hassan (Mr Chamberlain) and Cassim Baba 

 is lying in extremis, while Morgiana (Britannia), with 

 Ali Baba (Lord Salisbury) at her side, is holding the 

 steaming oil-can to the old man's nose, and he says : 



Alas ! I perish. Deadly 's my objection 

 To the least sniff of GENERAL ELECTION. 



It will interest many to see a specimen of Phil May's 

 earlier methods and so the page drawing referred to is 

 reproduced here, but of course on a much smaller scale. 



That Christmas Number was a very great success indeed 

 and made a big profit. All was going well with the paper 

 now, except in regard to business management. We were 

 doing about 7000 copies a week, and advertisements came 

 in in abundance. Our finances were still weak, but we 

 flourished exceedingly nevertheless, and political excite- 

 ment was growing higher as the attempted relief of Gordon 

 hung fire. Finally, in the second week of February, 

 came the news of Gordon's death. We received it on a 

 Wednesday morning, and Phil May at once dashed off 

 on transfer paper a study of Gladstone as Macbeth, with 

 Gordon as Banquo's ghost. This was published the 

 following (Thursday) morning, and so poor were the 

 methods of reproduction in those days that it was 

 deemed quite extraordinary to have got this sketch out 

 so quickly. It could not have been done had it not 

 been drawn on transfer paper. 



Events then began to march rapidly and ministers barely 

 escaped defeat on a vote of censure in the beginning of 



