Raemaekers' Cartoons: With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English WritersRaemaekers, Louis
History
Raemaekers' Cartoons: With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers
Raemaekers, Louis
Raemaekers, Louis, 1869-1956; World War, 1914-1918 -- Caricatures and cartoons
How thin the veneer of a sportsmanship was upon the Kaiser, which is
after all but symbolic of the higher and sterner virtues, all the world
has had a chance of judging. And in this remarkable and arresting
drawing the genius of the artist has taken and used a sporting incident
with telling and even horrifying effect.
In the old days it was pheasants, partridges, grouse, hares, rabbits,
and other feathered game, with the nobler stags and boars that formed
"the Butcher of Potsdam's 'bag.'" To-day he has his battues by proxy on
sea, land, and from the air. Thousands of victims, as innocent as the
feathered folk he slaughtered of yore; and women and little children
form the chief items of the bag; and especially is this true of the
"fruit of the Zeppelin raids."
He counts the bag and rewards the slayers of the innocent as he
doubtless did the beaters, huntsmen, and keepers of the estates over
which he formerly shot. It has been his ambition to make Europe one vast
Kaiserdom estate. But the sands are running out, and each "bag," whether
by Zeppelin or submarine, serves but to stiffen the backs of the Allies
and horrify neutral nations. Some day the accumulated horrors of the
Kaiser's ideas of sportsmanship will have taught the latter the lesson
that Kaiserdom with Europe as a Kaiser estate means the death of
liberty, the extinction of the smaller nations, and the setting up of a
despotism as cruel as that of Attila and his Huns--the self-accepted and
preached examples of William II of Germany.
CLIVE HOLLAND.
[Illustration: THE ZEPPELIN BAG]
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"COME IN, MICHAEL, I HAVE HAD A LONG SLEEP"
Yes--a long and rejuvenating sleep! The expression upon John's face
indicates an amazing determination and alertness. It is told of certain
remarkable men--De Lesseps amongst the number--that they had the faculty
of sleeping for several days and nights and then remaining wide awake
and at full tension for an equally long period of time. We may
confidently predict that John has this faculty. He is not likely to
slumber again till his work is done, and done thoroughly. Michael's
expression, I regret to note, is not quite so pleasing as John's. It
gives "furiously to think," as our gallant and beautiful France puts it,
that when Michael climbs through the window of the Happy Fatherland, he
may, perchance, inspire terror in the heart of the Hun, who doubtless
expects that his enemies, if they do invade the sacred soil, will
display those Christian qualities of Mercy and Forbearance which have
been so conspicuous, by their absence, in the treatment of unfortunate
prisoners upon whom they inflicted the extreme rigour of "Kultur."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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