Caricature and Other Comic Art Part 25

Picture of a woman in a bath-tub, to whom enters a man presenting a bill. She says: "Take a seat, for I am about to rise from the bath, and then we can settle that account."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Child, you will take cold."

"I take cold? But how well that overcoat fits him!"--From _El Mundo Comico_, Madrid, 1873.]

Picture of nurse, infant, and father. The father says: "Tell me, nurse; every body says it looks like me, but I think it takes after its mother more." The nurse replies: "When it laughs, yes; but when it frowns, it looks like you _atrociously_."

Picture of a "fast-looking" woman and the janitor of a lodging-house. He says: "You wish to see the landlord? I think he does not mean to have ladies in his house who are alone." She replies: "I am never alone."

Picture of young lady in bed, to whom a servant holds up an elegant bonnet, and says: "Tell me, since you are ill, and can not go to the ball, will you lend this to your _affectionate and faithful servant_, since I give you my word not to injure it?"

Picture of husband and wife at home, she taking out a note that had been concealed in a handkerchief. He speaks: "A woman who deceives her husband deserves no pity." She replies: "But if she does not deceive her husband, whom is she to deceive?"

Picture of the manager of a theatre in his office, to whom enters a dramatic author. _Author:_ "I have called to know if you have read my play." _Manager:_ "Not yet. It is numbered, in the list of plays received, 792; so that for this year--" _Author:_ "No, sir; nor for that which is to come either."

This will suffice for the "Comic Almanac." The _Comic World_ (_El Mundo Comico_), which next invites attention, is a weekly paper published at Madrid during the last four years. This work, also, has much in common with the wicked world of Paris, as with the wicked world of all countries where the priest feeds the imagination and starves the intellect. This reveling in the illicit and the indecent, which so astonishes us in the popular literature of Catholic countries, is merely a sign of impoverished mind, which is obliged to revolve ceaselessly about the physical facts of our existence, because it is acquainted with so few other facts.

The first number of the _Comic World_ presents a colored engraving of a Spanish beauty, attired in the last extremity of the fashion, bonnetless, fan in hand, with high-heeled boots, and a blending of French and Spanish in her make-up, walking in the street unattended. The picture is headed: "In Quest of the Unknown."

The next picture shows that Spain, too, has its savings-banks which do not save. Two strolling musicians, clothed in rags, are exhibited, one of whom says to the other: "A pretty situation! While men drive by in a coach after robbing us of our savings deposited in their banks, we ask alms of the robbers!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Inconvenience of the New Collar.

"How, my Adela, can you ask me to whisper in your ear when you have put that cover over it?"--From _El Mundo Comico_, Madrid, 1873.]

There is a pair of pictures, one called "The c.o.c.ks," and the other "The Pullets." The c.o.c.ks are three very young Spanish dandies, with dawning mustaches, extremely thin canes, and all the other puppyisms. The Pullets are three young ladies of similar age and taste. As they pa.s.s in the street, one of the c.o.c.ks says to his companions: "Do you see how the tallest one blushes?" The reply is: "Yes; when she sees me." At the same moment the Pullets exchange whispers. "How fast you go!" says one.

"Don't speak!" says another. "The dark-complexioned one is he whom we saw at the theatre." "Yes, I remember; the one in the box." In these pictures, as in most other Spanish caricatures, the men are meagre and disagreeable-looking, but the ladies are plump and attractive.

A "domestic scene" follows, which must be peculiar to Spain, one would think. A gay young husband, on leaving home in the evening, is addressed by his wife, who has a hand in his waistcoat-pocket: "You carry away twelve dollars and three shillings. We will see what extraordinary expense you incur to-night."

At Madrid, as at other capitals of Europe, the Englishman is an object of interest. Ladies seem to consider him a desirable match, and men make him the hero of extravagant anecdotes. There is a _table-d'hote_ picture in _El Mundo Comico_, presenting a row of people at an advanced stage of dinner, when the guests become interesting to one another. "Have you seen the colonel?" asks a chaperon of the young lady by her side. The damsel, looking her demurest, says: "Do not distract me; the Englishman is looking at me." Other pictures indicate that the ladies of Madrid are accustomed to look upon Englishmen as worth posing for.

The _Comic World_ aims a vilely executed caricature at the ghost of Hamlet's father, who is represented in the usual armor. The words signify: "All I ask is, did that ancient race take their afternoon nap in cuira.s.s and helmet?" From which we may at least infer that "El Principe Hamlet" is a familiar personage to the inhabitants of Madrid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sufferings endured by a Prisoner of War. (From _Gil Blas_, Madrid, September, 1870.)]

Among the numerous colored engravings which reflect upon, or, rather glorify, the frailty of women is one which can with difficulty be understood by Protestants. A girl is about to go to bed, and is saying a prayer beginning, "With G.o.d I lie down, with G.o.d I rise, with the Virgin Mary and the Holy Ghost!" The joke does not appear at the first glance, for there is no one else in the bedroom, unless there is some one in the curtained bed. We discover, at length, lying near her feet, a pair of man's boots!

Nothing is sacred to these savage caricaturists of the French school.

Another colored picture in _El Mundo Comico_ is called "Absence," and is designed to exhibit the sorrow of a woman at the absence of her lover in the wars. She says: "Poor Louis! I am here alone, forsaken, and he is pursuing the insurgents in the mountains. Does he remember me?" The innocent reader may well ask, What is the comedy of the situation? The woman in this scene is sitting on the edge of her bed, nearly naked, taking off her earrings, with other finery of her trade lying about on the table and the floor.

After running through a volume of this periodical, we are prepared to believe the descriptions given of society in the Spanish capital by the correspondent of the London _Times_ during the early months of Alfonso's "reign." Speaking of a monstrous scandal inculpating the king, he wrote: "In a profligate, frivolous, and gossiping capital like Madrid, where every one seems intent upon political plotting, debauchery, and idleness, there is no scandal, no invention of malice too gross and improbable for acceptance, provided those attacked are well known. The higher his or her rank, the greater is the cynical satisfaction with which the tale of depravity is retailed by the newsmongers in _cafe_, _tertulia_, and club."

Another comic weekly published at Madrid is called _Gil Blas, Periodico Satirico_. This is by far the least bad of the comic papers recently attempted in Spain. Many of its subjects are drawn from the politics of the period, and some of them appear to be very happily treated. The sorry adventures of Louis Napoleon and his son in the war between France and Prussia are presented with much comic effect. Queen Isabel and her hopeful boy figure also in many sketches, which were doubtless amusing to the people of Madrid when they appeared. The Duc de Montpensier and other possible candidates for the throne are portrayed in situations and circ.u.mstances not to be fully understood at this distance from the time and scene.

The Spanish caricatures given in this chapter, whatever the reader may think of them, were selected from about a thousand specimens; and if they are not the very best of the thousand, they are at least the best of those which can be appreciated by us.

Cuba had its comic periodical during the brief ascendency of liberal ideas in 1874. A Cuban letter of that year chronicles its suspension: "The comic weekly newspaper, _Juan Palonio_, has met its death-blow by an order of suspension for a month, and a strong hint to the director, Don Juan Ortega, that a trip to the Peninsula would be of benefit to his health. The immediate cause of this order was a cartoon, representing the arms of the captain-general wielding a broom, marked 'extraordinary powers,' and sweeping away ignorance, the insurrection, etc. There was nothing, in fact, to take umbrage at; but the cartoon served as a pretext to kill the paper, which was rather too republican in tone. The Government censor was removed from his position for the same reason, and a new one appointed."

In those countries long debauched by superst.i.tion, comic art has little chance; for if tyranny does not kill it, a dissolute public degrades it into a means of pollution.

CHAPTER XXII.

ITALIAN CARICATURE.

As soon as comic art in Italy is mentioned, we think of Pasquino, the merry Roman tailor, whose name has enriched all the languages of Europe with an effective word. Many men whose names have been put to a similar use have, notwithstanding, been completely forgotten; but Pasquino, after having been the occasion of pasquinades for four centuries, is still freshly remembered, and travelers tell his story over again to their readers.

Pasquino was the fashionable tailor at Rome about the time when the discovery of America was a recent piece of news. In his shop, as tradition reports, bishops, courtiers, n.o.bles, literary men, were wont to meet to order their clothes, and retail the scandal of the city. The master of the shop, a wit himself, and the daily receptacle of others'

wit, uttered frequent epigrams upon conspicuous persons, which pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth, as such things will in an idle and luxurious community. Whatever piece of witty malice was afloat in the town came to be attributed to Pasquino; and men who had more wit than courage attributed to him the satire they dared not claim.

Catholics who have seen the inside of Roman life, who have been domiciled with bishops and cardinals, report that the magnates of Rome, to this day, a.s.sociate in the informal manner in which we should suppose they did four centuries ago, from the traditions of Pasquino and his sayings. The Pope sends papers of _bonbons_ to the Sisters who have charge of infant schools, and shares among the cardinals the delicacies and interesting objects which are continually sent to him. Upon hearing their accounts of the easy familiarities and light tone of the higher ecclesiastical society of recent times, we can the better understand the traditions that have come down to us of Pasquino and his shop full of highnesses and eminences.

Pasquino, like the "fellow of infinite jest" upon whose skull Hamlet moralized in the church-yard, died, and was buried. Soon after his death it became necessary to dig up an ancient statue half sunk in the ground of his street; and, to get it out of the way, it was set up close to his shop. "Pasquino has come back," said some one. Rome accepted the jest, and thus the statue acquired the name of Pasquino, which it retains to the present day. Soon it became a custom to stick to it any epigram or satirical verse the author of which desired to be unknown. So many of these sharp sayings were aimed at the ecclesiastical lords of Rome, that one of the popes was on the point of having the statue thrown into the river, just as modern tyrants think to silence criticism by suppressing the periodical in which it appears. Pasquino, properly enough, was saved by an epigram.

"Do not throw Pasquino into the Tiber," said the Spanish emba.s.sador, "lest he should teach all the frogs in the river to croak pasquinades."

We can not wonder that the popes should have objected to Pasquino's biting tongue, if the specimens of his wit which are given by Mr.

Story[38] fairly represent him. There was a volume of six hundred and thirty-seven pages of epigrams and satires, published in 1544, claiming to be pasquinades, many of which doubtless were such. Here is one upon the infamous pope, Alexander s.e.xtus:

"s.e.xtus Tarquinius, s.e.xtus Nero--this also is s.e.xtus.

Always under the s.e.xtuses Rome has been ruined."

[Footnote 38: "Roba di Roma," p. 283.]

After the sudden death of Pope Leo X., two Latin lines to the following effect were found upon Pasquino:

"If you desire to hear why at his last hour Leo Could not the sacraments take, know he had sold them."

The allusion is to Leo's unscrupulous use of every means within his power of raising money.

When Clement VII., after the sack of Rome, was held a prisoner, Pasquino had this:

"_Papa non potest errare._"

This sentence ordinarily means that the pope can not err; but the verb _errare_ signifies also _to wander_, _to stroll_; so that the line was a sneer both at the pope's confinement and his claim to infallibility.

One of Pasquino's hardest hits was called forth by the grasping measures of Pius VI.:

"Three jaws had Cerberus, and three mouths as well, Which barked into the blackest deeps of h.e.l.l.

Three hungry mouths have you; ay, even four; None of them bark, but all of them devour."

There was a capital one, too, and a just, upon the inst.i.tution of the Legion of Honor in France by Napoleon Bonaparte, not long after he had stolen several hundred precious works of art and ma.n.u.scripts from the Roman States.

"In times less pleasant and more fierce, of old, The thieves were hung upon the cross, we're told.