The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1Furniss, Harry
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The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1
Furniss, Harry
Cartoonists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Furniss, Harry, 1854-1925
One of the most amusing sketches I received was this from Sir Frank
Lockwood. Lockwood and I frequently exchanged caricatures, as shown by
the clever sketches I introduce here and there in these pages. Sometimes
he sent me some chaffing note written in a disguised hand, and disguised
drawing; but the latter experiment, although it failed to deceive,
certainly entertained me greatly. Here is a letter supposed to be from
Lord Cross, a favourite subject of mine when he was in the Lower House.
Seldom a week passed but I made his nose shorter and his upper lip
longer, made his head stick out, and his spectacles glisten. Did he
object? No, no! "Grand Cross" is a man of the world; nor was he ever a
mere notoriety-seeking political adventurer. I once met him at dinner,
and we chatted over my caricatures of him, and I recollect his saying,
"A man is not worth anything if he is thin-skinned, and certainly not
worth much if he cannot enjoy a joke at his own expense."
Sir Frank Lockwood whiled away the weary hours in Parliament to his own
amusement and those around him, but he was not aware perhaps that what
he did was seen from the Ladies' Gallery. The ladies got a birdseye view
of his caricatures in progress. One in particular was the cause of much
amusement, not only to the ladies, but to the Members. My lady informant
related the incident to me thus: "I always watch Mr. Lockwood sketching,
and I saw he had his eye on the burly figure of a friend of mine sitting
on the Ministerial bench. Mr. Gladstone turned round to say something to
him, and his quick eye detected Mr. Lockwood sketching. The artistic
Q.C. handed the sketch (which I saw was a caricature of the late Lord
Advocate) to Mr. Gladstone, who fairly doubled up with laughter, and
handed it to those on either side of him. Eventually it was sent over to
Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Balfour, and they thoroughly enjoyed the
caricature of themselves, as did all their Tory friends. But _we_ had
seen it first!" It may have been this sketch subsequently sent to me and
redrawn in _Punch_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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