The person who wanted more liberty, equality, and fraternity than was good for him or anybody else, was a Mr. Cochran, and his adherents were called Cochranites.
COCHRANITE: "Hooray! Veeve ler liberty!! Harm yourselves!! To the palis!! Down with heverythink!!!!"
In the second picture the Cochranite has collapsed. A stalwart policeman has taken him in hand, and he cries, "Oh, sir--please, sir--it ain't me, sir. I'm for God save the Queen and Rule Britannier. Boo-hoo!--oh dear! oh dear!" (bursts into tears).
Below we have another result of the agitation, touched in Leech's happiest manner. A special constable endeavours to arrest an agitator, who evidently objects, and prepares for resistance.
SPECIAL CONSTABLE: "Now mind, you know--if I kill you, it's nothing; but if you kill me, by Jove! it's murder!"]
A certain Master Jackey was a great favourite of Leech's. In an elaborate work this youth's pranks are chronicled under the heading of "Home for the Holidays." Whether the hero of those adventures is the same as he who is pictured in the work I present to my readers I know not. In all probability the taste for practical joking which flourished so vigorously in the holiday scenes began, as we see, in the nursery. Master Jackey has been to the play, where he has witnessed the performances of a contortionist, and, emulous of rivalling the professor, he perils the limbs and lives of his brothers and sisters in his operations. We know of the tendency to imitate in all children, but when the propensity shows itself in the imitation of tricks that require long practice before they can be performed with safety, the game, though amusing to the players, may be very dangerous to the played upon. It is to be hoped that the rush of the terrified mother in this capital scene may be in time to save the baby from a perilous fall. The little brothers have already tasted the consequence of Master Jackey's imitation.
The accompanying drawing was suggested by myself during an after-dinner conversation at a friend's house. The talk had turned on the difficulty that the pronunciation of certain words would prove to one who had dined not wisely but too well, when it occurred to me that "Plesiosaurus" or "Ichthyosaurus" would be troublesome, and I said so. Leech smiled, and said nothing, but in _Punch_ of the week following his idea of the difficulty appeared.