A very curious personage makes his appearance in Robert's sketches of this year, who would seem at first sight to be the most outrageously caricatured of any of his subjects, and yet this in truth is not the case. This person was the celebrated Claude Ambroise Seurat, "the living skeleton," who was exhibited at the Chinese saloon in Pall Mall, and whose portrait from three different points of view was taken by Robert Cruikshank, and afterwards appeared in the first volume of Hone's "Every-day Book," where a full account of this very singular personage will be found. The repulsive object, who (with the exception of his face) presented all the appearance of an attenuated skeleton, was exhibited in a state of complete nudity with the exception of a fringe of silk about his middle, from which (out of two holes cut for the purpose) protruded his dreadful hip bones. Seurat, as might have been expected, forms the subject of numerous contemporary caricatures; and in one of these, by way of comical contrast, the worthy but corpulent alderman, Sir William Curtis, distinguished by a similar scantiness of attire, figures with the living skeleton in a lively _pas de deux_. William Heath, in another of contemporary date, represents the fat alderman standing on a map of England, and Seurat on a map of France. Says Sir William: "I say, friend, did you ever eat turtle soup?" to which Claude Ambroise replies, "No, sare; but I did eat de soupe maigre." In another (also I think by the same artist), labelled, _Foreign Rivals for British Patronage_, the living skeleton and a favourite male Italian singer of the time are represented in the act of preparing for mortal combat.[54] A number of the caricatures of 1825 (and among them many by Robert) are singularly illustrative of the morals of the time. About this year had been published a work professing to contain the memoirs of an apt disciple of Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke, which was made the vehicle of extorting money. The _modus operandi_ appears to have been as follows. In the month of March, 1825, a well-known M.P. of that day received a letter from this creature in the following terms:-- "NO. 111, RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORE, A PARIS.