ing upon the prostrate form of Buchanan after the Baltimore convention, for Douglas was the first of the four presidential candidates who took the field that year. This is one of the best-drawn and most vigorous pictures in the collection, and compares favorably with the caricatures of the present day. The two pictures in which Lincoln is the chief figure, "The Nigger in the Woodpile" and "An Heir to the Throne," came out soon after his nomination, and the likeness of him which is presented in both of them seems to be based on the photograph which was taken in Chicago in 1857. It is a powerful face, full of the same sad and noble dignity which became more deeply marked upon it in later years, the face indeed, even then, of the "kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing

man" of Lowell's immortal ode.

The caricaturists of the period were quick to seize upon whatever happened to be uppermost in the public mind at the moment, with which to add point to their pictures. Thus Barnum's famous "What is it?"

was used to make a point against the Abolition issue in Lincoln's election. The

tures of this 1860 collection, "The Impending Crisis" and "The Irrepressible Conflict," had a very large sale, exceeding 50,000 copies each. They represent the failure of Seward to obtain the Republican nomination, and in both Horace Greeley is pictured as the chief agent of the disaster. In one instance Mr. Greeley is depicted as having pushed Mr. Seward off a wharf, and as having been caught in the act by Henry J. Raymond, while General Webb gives evidence as an eye-witness. In the other, Mr. Greeley is throwing Mr. Seward overboard from a boat which Lincoln is steering, and which is very heavily loaded with the leaders of the Republican party. Mr. Seward's famous phrase, which gives the picture its title, was uttered in October, 1858,

and had passed almost immediately into the political vocabulary of the people. One of the most peculiar of the caricatures of this 1860 campaign is that called "Progressive Democracy." The manner in which the heads of the Democratic candidates are placed upon the bodies of the mules in this picture is the same as that employed in all the earlier caricatures before the year 1800, and but rarely after that time. Early in the nineteenth century the caricaturists began to form the human features from the face of the animal, rather than to hang the human head in front of the animal's ears as is done in this picture. The prominent position occupied by the Tam

two companion pic

Fessenden, as Secretary of the Treasury, is turning, shows a productive capacity which will attract the interest, and may excite the envy, of the fiat money advocates of the present time. But the caricature which outstripped all others. in popularity in the early war period was that drawn by Frank Beard, called "Why Don't You Take It?" (page 231). This had a sale exceeding 100,000 copies, and went to all parts of the North. It was reproduced, in a weakened form, and placed on envelops among the count

known. In its original form it represented Jackson "going the whole hog" in his quest for popularity, reaching out for a butterfly labeled "Popularity," and exclaiming, "By the Eternal, I'll get it!" He was mounted upon the hog which South Carolina is riding in the present picture, and behind him upon donkeys rode the members of his "kitchen cabinet," with the exception of Van Buren. The latter, mounted upon a fox, was taking the course pursued by Georgia in the later picture, and was uttering a phrase which he had made public in one of his letters, to the effect that, while he generally followed his illustrious leader, he had thought it advisable in the present emergency to" deviate a little." This fixes the date of the original picture at the beginning of the campaign of 1832, after Van Buren had resigned from the cabinet. The other specimen of the year 1861, "Running the Machine," shows Lincoln's cabinet in session, and gives us a poor portrait of him. The greenback-mill, which

less other devices which were used in that way to express Union sentiment. An interesting collection of these decorated envelops is among the archives of the New York Historical Society. Mr. Beard's formidable bull-dog was intended to represent General Scott, and in some of the reduced reproductions Scott's name was placed upon his collar. The caricature hit the popular fancy when the Confederate army was threatening to advance upon Washington, and streets were made impassable wherever it was exhibited in shop-windows.

The publication of these lithograph caricatures was continued through the Lincoln-McClellan campaign of 1864, one specimen of which is presented on page 230, showing General McClellan as a peacemaker between Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. This likeness of Lincoln is so inaccurate as to be almost unrecognizable, and is by John Cameron, the artist who drew the cabinet group. Caricatures were issued also during the campaigns of 1868 and 1872, some

of which are to be had now. They did not differ materially from the earlier ones, showing very little progress in either design or drawing.

The death-knell of the lithograph sheet caricature was sounded when the illustrated newspapers began to publish political caricatures. They did not do this till the close of the war, though Thomas Nast made his first appearance in " Harper's Weekly" while the war was in progress. His pictures during the war were serious in purpose, and cannot be classed as caricatures. He began his career as a political caricaturist when Andrew Johnson started to "swing round the circle," but his fame rests on achievements of a later period. His series of about fifty cartoons upon the Tammany Ring, during and following the exposures of 1871, constitute a distinct epoch in American political caricature. He was unlike any caricaturist who had preceded him, and his successors

have not followed his methods. He gave to the satiric art of caricature a power that it had never before known in this country, and seldom in any country. It is impossible to look at this work of his, in the light of what had preceded it and of what has come after it, and not say that Nast stands by himself, the creator of a school which not only began but ended with him. He had drawn political caricatures before he had Tweed and his allies for subjects, and he drew other political caricatures after his destructive, deadly work with them was finished, but his fame will rest on his work of that period. While he had no successor in artistic methods, the success of caricature in the pages of an illustrated newspaper was so clearly demonstrated by him, that he pointed the way to the establishing of the weekly journals devoted to that purpose which have since sprung up, and which have so completely occupied the field

that "Harper's Weekly" and other similar competitors have practically withdrawn from it.

The founder and chief developer of contemporary political caricature in America, as we behold it in the many-colored cartoons of "Puck" and "Judge," was a young artist and actor from Vienna, named Joseph Keppler, who reached St. Louis in 1868 in search of his fortune. He had studied drawing under the best teachers in Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts, but a strong

for a time, and also reappeared upon the local stage as an actor. In September, 1876, the first number of " Puck" of the present day was issued in German, and in March, 1877, the first number in English made its appearance. The "Puck" of those early days was a very different thing from what it is now. Its cartoons were drawn on wood, and were in white and black. The drawing was strong, but the composition of the pictures was almost as crude as that of

inclination for acting had taken him upon the stage. During the first year or two after his arrival in America he went about the country as a member of a traveling theatrical troupe, appearing in the theaters of many cities, including those of St. Louis, New Orleans, and New York. His hand turned naturally to caricature, and after vain attempts to sell some of his drawings to daily newspapers in St. Louis, he started in that city in 1869 an illustrated lithographic weekly, in German, with the title "Die Vehme." The subject of his first caricature was Carl Schurz, at that time a conspicuous figure in St. Louis. The paper had a short life, and was succeeded in 1870 by a new venture called "Puck." Two volumes of this were issued, that of the first year being in German alone, and that of the second in both German and English. The enterprise was doing fairly well, when Keppler was compelled to abandon it. He went to New York city in 1873, where he did some work for a weekly illustrated paper

the old lithograph sheets. Keppler at first followed the French and Italian schools of caricature, exaggerating the size of the heads and the length of the legs. He very soon abandoned this, however, and began to feel his way toward the gradual unfolding of what under his guidance has become a distinctly American school of caricature. In 1878 he began to draw on stone, and in order to brighten the effect of his pictures he commenced to tint them slightly with a single color. In 1879 two colors or tints were used, and from that time on the growth has been steady and rapid until the bright and multicolored cartoon of the present day has been reached.

No one can look at the lithograph sheet caricatures of 1856 and 1860 and not be struck with the strong general resemblance which they bear to the cartoons of to-day. There is the same use of many figures in both, and the same mingling of editors, politicians, and other prominent personages in groups and situations illustrating

and ridiculing the political developments of the day. Instead of using the overhead loops to explain the meaning of the picture, however, our contemporary artists build up elaborate backgrounds and surround the central figures with details which, if the cartoon be a success, help to tell its story at a glance. The artistic merit of the modern cartoon is, of course, far in advance of its predecessors. The style is very different from that of the "Punch cartoon, which has been developed from the same original source as the American. Both trace their pedigree straight back to Gillray and Doyle, but the development has been in different di

rections. The "Punch" cartoon of to-day is confined in almost all instances to a few figures, and, except in the great advance made in artistic merit, does not differ in general style from the "Punch" cartoon of fifty years ago. The American cartoon, on the contrary, is a modern creation. It has taken the old group idea of Gillray and Doyle, has made it gorgeous with colors, has built it up and fortified it with backgrounds, and has imparted to the figures and faces of its personages a freedom of humor and a terrible vigor of satire which are peculiarly American. The author and gradual unfolder of this cartoon is Keppler, who has the honor