Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 2 (of 4).—1857-1874Graves, Charles L. (Charles Larcom)
History
Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 2 (of 4).—1857-1874
Graves, Charles L. (Charles Larcom)
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901 -- Humor
In the region of sport fox-hunting continues to dominate the scene.
Leech's pictures are largely devoted to satirizing cockney sportsmen,
but they render full justice to the enterprise and intrepidity of the
younger generation and of hard-riding young ladies. He is less happy or
at any rate less genial in ridiculing the irregularities of the "Mossoo"
in the hunting field. The exploits and adventures of the ubiquitous Mr.
Briggs form an agreeable pendant and supplement to the novels of
Surtees. Mr. Briggs was not an aristocrat, but he was more of a
gentleman if less of a personality than Jorrocks. But Leech's premature
death left a tremendous gap, for both in humour and draughtsmanship the
artists who took his place as delineators of the chase were
immeasurably his inferiors. In connexion with the "noble animal" we may
note that the advent of Rarey, the famous horse-tamer, was warmly
welcomed by _Punch_ and Leech in 1858. The possibilities of the
treatment are developed in a variety of ways, but there is more than
mere burlesque in the suggestion that it could be profitably applied to
stablemen and horsebreakers. And here we may note a crude foreshadowing
of winter-sports in Leech's picture of the frozen-out foxhunter who
builds a "treboggin" and, with his groom seated behind, careers down
hill and across country in a machine about 12 feet long and not 2 feet
wide with a splash-board in front.
[Illustration: THE FROZEN-OUT FOX-HUNTER
Sporting Militaire recalls to mind his Canadian experiences (the ground
being deep with snow), builds a treboggin, and for the moment ceases to
swear at the frost, or to regret the six hunters he has eating their
heads off in the stable.]
[Sidenote: _In Praise of the Ring_]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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