Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1869 — Punch during the Rebellion. [ARTICLE]

Punch during the Rebellion.

' If any one wishes to obtain a comet idea or the state of public feeling in Great Britain during onr late civil war, let him turn to the contemporaneous pages Of Punch. The speeches of prominent statesmen and the editorials of the leading newspapers may to day be disclaimed as the utterances of party prejudice or the efftttions of an exasperated and privileged class. But Punch is nothing if not the mirror held np to public opinion—on all questions of foreign policy especially. No one can torn the pages over Which presides the grinning hunchback of fleet street without seeing therein displayed the state of popular feeling ffegpt'oting Poland, Italy, Denmark, Russia, and, above all, the United State*. From the first cartoon of theteeriee minting to ths war in America, wherein “ Miss Carolina” (depicted as a raw-boned virago) “asserts her right te wajlop her nigger * down to the isit, wherein the Northern ghdiator, equipped « a ntiarivs, throws Ms net over his adversary and cries “Habet!" there is ao real sympathy or kindly feeling for either side expressed therein. The Northerners am fratricides, cowards, 'liars, braggarts, naughty boys, whom Mother Britannia intends to whip some day—impertinent blusterers whom John Bull will shortly feel called upon to Chastise soundly; while the Southerners are negro-whippers and ruffians: and both ■ides are madmen and fools fighting about the universal nigger, la one picture the American gladiators stud equipped far combat before a negro emperor and a grinning circle of negro spectators; in another, entitled the “American Juggernaut’s Car,” the American# are depicted aa flinging themselves umter.tk* mighty wheels of S monster cannot. * ®en* John BuUcnUs to tie two bad boy* .the; North-and the Souths 4 ‘ Ido® *t cdNi fegopsnso for your noise, but if you throw atones at. my wiidows'l must thrash you ; deity" and there Columbia gazes mourn fully o# & amp pf the United States rent hoprieeeiytotwaia, White Britannia remarks: “ You jM And it’very hard to join that neatly.” The att*' wee father, England, to that thought! Occasionally, as the varying fortune of War ; bide victory incline to one or the other ht the combatants, a gentle pat is given to the more suoeeeuftu of the two, but a vicious dig is pretty sure to follow immediately thereafter. Late in the summer of 1864, Lord Palmerston is represented as looking smilingly on Jefferson Davis, while Punch logs his afeoisr and says significantly, “ Don’t you mean to recognize him?” Yet before the spring 1806 is over Punch calls on Britannia to weep with Columbia over the corpse of Lincoln, and becomes highly sympathetic when sympathy is no longer either useful or welcome.— Lippineotfs Mogosinefor July.