A series of crude (and in some cases explicitly racist) lithographed cards numbered 1-16, with scenes relating to political reform on both sides of the Atlantic. On British side, they cover the reforms to the franchise made by the 1832 Reform Act, poking fun at ‘poor distress’d turn’d out Boroughmongers’ (No. 1), the rural squirearchy (No. 7), Taxes (No. 9), the established Church (No. 10) and Irishmen (no. 12), among others. United States political issues are shown in the second card which reuses – with added racist slurs – the design of Edward Williams Clay (1799-1857) entitled ‘Hurrah! hurrah for Genl. Jackson!!’ under the caption ‘Life in Philadelphia’. Cards nos. 4 and 7, with yet more overt racism, use references to American segregationism to caricature British political positions.
- Title: [Political cartoons relating to reform in Great Britain and the United States] [graphic].
- Publication: [York, England] : W.F. Wodson, lith., Pavement, York, [approximately 1832]
724 832 P769
Acquired July 2023
A coach pulling up to the Post Station, the Cock Inn at left, on route to Brighton. The coach is pulling into the court yard, about to pass under a wooden gate bearing the inn’s sign, while another coach stands at the inn door. People look down from the second story windows. A man waits at the mile marker in front of another building at right. In the foreground to left, a man with a wooden leg carries a small child on his back as he leads a donkey that carries a woman and two children, one of whom appears to be nursing, the other in a basket that hangs over the donkey. Their dog follows behind.
Copy (reversed) of the first state of Plate 7 of Hogarth’s ‘The Rake’s Progress’ (Paulson 138): A room in the Fleet Prison (after the painting at Sir John Soane’s Museum); Tom sits at a table, to right, on which is a rejection letter from John Rich to whom he has submitted a play; his wife clenches her fists, the gaoler asks for garnish money and a boy asks payment for a tankard of ale; to left, Sarah Young has fainted and is being administered smelling salts by one woman while another slaps her hand, her child clings to her skirt; she is supported by an older man with a beard who has dropped a sheet containing a scheme for paying the national debt (a reference to such a scheme put forward by Hogarth’s father); in the background an alchemist works at a forge.”–British Museum online catalogue.
An ugly woman with only two teeth and with holes in her sleeve, shown half-length to left, a scarf over her head and tied under her chin, one hand around a tankard, holding up the other hand with thumb and forefinger pinched together, a small round snuff box on the table.