CARICATURES IN ENGLISH PAPERS.

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 36, 21 May 1881, Page 388

CARICATURES IN ENGLISH PAPERS.

So much has been written and said by local folks about the cruelty and the insulting nature of the^ etchings (very few of them can be called caricatures) which appear in the Observer, that we last week resolved, partly in selfdefence and partly to show how foolish and puerile such complaints are, to reproduce (on a small scale) two specimens of the famous caricatures by "Ape," which have recently appeared in the London society journal, Vanity Fair. _ | 'Ape" is the pseudonym of M.Pellegrini, an artist of no mean merit, who, by his marvellous powers of mimicry and caricature, has obtained an enviable" position in London society and the intimate friendship of tie Prince of Wales. M. Pellegrini is famed for the truthful severity with which he seizes any notable feature in a man's face or figure, and by a few strokes of the pencil draws attention to it. His sketches are sometimes wildly unlike the reality, and yet it is impossible to look at them without at once recognising the original, and ejaculating "How good." We have chosen two, representing wellknown characters, viz., "Chinese Gordon" and Sir William Temple, the Indian magnate. With the former is published the letterpress which accompanied the caricature, and we think it proves conclusively that the editor is an inti-

mate friend and a sincere admirer of Colonel Gordon's. Yet if a grotesque caricature is an insult., what could be worse than this iigure of a half "daft" muddler, with parboiled hsh-like eyes and shuffling gait.

Sir William Temple's caricature is even Avor.se, yet Truth avers lie Laughed heartily when he saw it. We now append the biography (as told by Jelai, jun.) of Colonel Gordon.

"Chinese Gordon" is the most notable of living Englishmen. He comes of a soldier race. His great-grandfather fought against the Pretender for King George ; his grandfather was at the taking of Quebec ; his father was a General of Artillery, served in Sicily and Italy, and fought in that battle of Maida, in 1806, when British soldiers first in this century showed, by beating a superior force of them, that French soldiers were not invincible. He himself was born eight-and-forty years ago. He was schooled at Taunton and Woolwich, till at fourteen he entered the Military Academy, where he remained for five years, a hopeless "pickle," who once received a special rebuke and reduction to the ranks from Lord Anglesey He was longer getting through his examinations than any other cadet had ever been ; and he only passed into the Engineers at last by dint of the painful experience of examiners' little ways which he had acquired in a long course of plucking. In 1852, however, he got his commission in the Engineers. He went to the Crimea, was wounded in the trenches, and was in the attack on the Redan. He was afterward employed on the Boundary Commissions in Bessarabia and Asia. But while he was in the trenches before Sebastopol the great Tai-ping insurrection in China as threatned to bring to an end the Manchoo dynasty, which had lasted two hundred, and the Chinese Empire, which had lasted four thousand years. This insurrection was headed by Huug-Sew-tsuen, who styled himself the

Tien Wang, or Heavenly King, and professed a kind of Christianity. In 1853 lie had captured Nanking, the ancient capital of China, and had barely failed to capture Peking, the modern capital. Then the Manch'oo dynasty fell upon troubles "with the Crimean allies ; and because the English insisted oti selling opium in China, and Admiral Hope had got beaten at the Taku Forts, Peking was captured in 1860 by the English and French instead of by the Taipings. Meantime a force of rowdies had been organised by the Chinese merchants of Shanghai against these same Tai-pings, and had been put under the command lirst of one an American adventurer, who was killed fighting, and then of Burgeviue, another American. In January, 1563, the English decided to act against the Tai-pings, who had approached towards Shanghai. Captain Holland, an English officer, was therefore appointed, on Burgevine's dismissal, to command the Shanghai force, now called the "Ever- Victorious Army." Holland got repulsed by the Taipings. Thereupon Colonel Gordon, who had been travelling and triangulating about the Great Wall, was put at the head of the force, and Charlie Gordon became ''Chinese" Gordon. He addressed himself to the business with rare energy, ability, and single-minded-ness. He recognised the force, which had always been and always continued to be prone to disorder and mutiny ; he launched a flotilla, and entered upon a campaign in which he captured many cities, fought over thirty desperate battles, and iinally was found in May, 1564, to have reconquered China with his three thousand men for the Manchoo dynasty. He was wounded once, and had the most marvelous escapes, yet he never went aimed himself with more than a bamboo stick, except upon the one occasion when lie raged about to take the life of the Chinese superior officer for a breach of faith towards the enemy, in having executed eight of the insurgent chiefs who had surrendered to Gordon's own protection. The Chinese Government was most grateful for these services. They gave him the rank of Ti-Ti, or provincial emmander-in-chief ; they gave him the Yellow Jacket, which answers to our Order of Garter, only that it is far more ancient ; and they offered him a gift of £17,000. But Gordon would not have it said that he had sold his blood. He refused the £17,000 for himself, and demanded instead, and got, £30,000 for his army, which he paid oft' and disbanded. The English Government were likewise grateful. The}' made him a C.8., thus raising him to the same rank with Mr. Creppy Vivian and Mr. Philip Carrie, the Foreign Office clerks, Sir Bernard Burke, the compiler of peerages, and other eminent persons. It was felt that a man of his power should be apiwopriately employed. As, however, the drains and outhouses at Woolwich were considered for the moment safe, he was necessarily left aside till 1871, when he was appointed Vice-Consul of the Delta of the Danube

In 1573, however, a man was wanted in Egypt. The Egyptian Government applied to Gordon to govern its Equatorial provinces. They oil'ered him the same salary as had Leon given to his predecessor, Sir Samuel Baker, £10,000 a year. Gordon declined this, declaring that it was too much, and took £2000 a year. Again he governed, fought and conjured, showing himself a true master of men. At the end of IS7G he came to England Jfor a few weeks, and then returned to the governorship of the Loudan and the suppression of the .slave trade. In August, 1579, he went to Aliyssiua, ceded to the King of that country a province which of right belonged to it, had a, quarrel with the Egyptian Government because they would not recognise the right, and in .January last year abandoned Egypt and came again to England. Last May" he unwisely allowed himself to be seduced into becoming private secretary to Lord Itipon. A few weeks of this showed him, what one better acquainted will i ollicial ways would have known, that an honest man cannot do the dirty work required of a Viceroy's private secretary. He resigned the post therefore, and not only generously forehore to tell the world the true "reason of his resignation, but took all the blame upon himself in a letter which made him appear to be merely headstrong and crochety. Yet lie acted rightly and as an honorable and honest man only could act. Having resigned, he was at once invited to China to advise on the quarrel of that country with Russia. Thither he went instantly, in .spite of the prohibition of ainased Horse Guards authorities, which he answered by resigning his commission, a resignation Avhich there was still sense enough left in London to refuse to accept. He gave excellent counsel to the Chinese Government, returned again to England, and is now the grandest Englishman alive, and a Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers in the English Army waiting for his promotion. Colonel Gordon is the most conscientious, simple-minded, unseliish and honest of men. He has a complete contempt for money, and after having again and again rejected opportunities of becoming rich beyond the dreams of avarice, he remains a poor man with nothing in the world but his sword and his honor. The official mind, being incapable of understanding this, regards it as a sign of madness. And as it is found that besides being utterly without greed he is utterly without vanity or self assertion, he is set down by the officials as being ' 'cranky" and unsafe to employ in comparison with such great men as Lord Chelmsford, Sir Garnet Wolseley and Sir George Colley. He is very modest aud very gentle, yet full of enthusiasm for what he holds to be right. This enthusiasm often leads him to interfere in matters which, lie does not understand, and to make in haste statements he has to correct at leisure. But lie is a fine, noble, knightly gentleman, such as is found but once in many generations