[Illustration: _Designed, Etched and Published by_ GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. _November 1st, 1829._
"A SCENE IN KENSINGTON GARDENS, OR FASHIONS AND FRIGHTS OF 1829."
On the 4th of December, 1818, the number of convicts lying under sentence of death in his Majesty's gaol of Newgate, amounted to no less than sixty, of whom ten were females; probably not three of these unfortunate beings would have been hung now-a-days. Under the Draconian laws, however, then in force, people were hung in scores for passing forged one-pound Bank of England notes; and this barbarous state of things, disgraceful to a Christian country, led to the famous and telling satire of the _Bank Restriction Note_, one of the very few which seem to have escaped oblivion, and which, having been repeated and reproduced in all the latest essays which have been written on him, calls for no extra description from ourselves. It is said to have had the effect desired, and that "no man or woman was ever hanged after this for passing forged one-pound Bank of England notes."
In 1819 we have one of George Cruikshank's severe and telling attacks upon the Prince Regent, in _Sales by Auction, or Provident Children disposing of their Deceased Mother's Effects for the Benefit of the Creditors_ (*), in which he shows us the prince knocking down (in his character of auctioneer) his dead mother's old hats, gowns, and clothing, and begging the bystanders to bid liberally. At the foot of the rostrum lie sundry snuff-boxes and pots, labelled "Queen's Mixture" and "Prince's Mixture" (in allusion to the old queen's habits), "Strasburg" (in reference to her German tastes and nationality), together with her old china tea-set.
This year is remarkable for producing perhaps the most ambitious and admirable allegory which the artist ever designed; it bears the title of _Old Thirty-nine Shaking Hands with his Good Brother the Pope of Italy, or Covering Up_ versus _Sealing the Bible_. Old Thirty-nine (an English bishop) stands on a pile of volumes labelled, "Never-out-ism," "Ante-biblism," "Never-the-same-ism," etc., whilst the pope, standing on the opposite side on a mass of books bearing similar suggestive titles, shakes hands with his "good brother." By the pope's side we find the devil busily engaged in sealing up the Bible. Behind him stands the Temple of Mammon, surrounded by a crowd of reverend worshippers. Two fiends standing by the side of "Old Thirty-nine" make preparations for a bonfire, to which sundry bundles labelled, "Articles of Faith," "Athanasian Creed," "Catechism," "Liturgies," "Nicene Creed," and so on, will contribute materials. Out of a building in the rear, inscribed, "National School for Thirty-niners only," issues a procession of ecclesiastics and beadles carrying banners. In the foreground stands the figure of "Divine Truth," surrounded by little children, and perusing the pages of the "Holy Bible," held for that purpose by an angel. A roughly executed affair in two compartments, _Preachee and Floggee Too_, satirizes certain clerical magistrates who, while preaching mercy and forgiveness in the pulpit, distinguish themselves by the severity of their sentences for minor offences on the magisterial bench. The titles of other subjects of the year are: _The Hobby Horse Dealer_; _Johnny Bull and his Forged Notes, or Rags and Ruin in the Paper Currency_; _Smoke Jack, the Alarmist, Extinguishing the Second Great Fire of London_; _Love, Law, and Physic_ (*); _The Sailor's Progress_ (six subjects); _Dandies in France, or Le Restorateur_ (*); _A Match for the King's Plate_; _The Belle Alliance, or the Female Reformers of Blackburn_ (*); _Voila t'on mort_; and _Royal Red Bengal Tiger_ (etched from the designs of other artists); _Irish Decency_ (two caricatures); _Giant Grumbo and the Black Dwarf, or Lord G---- and the Printers Devil_; and _Our Tough old Ship Steered Safely into Harbour maugre Sharks of the Day_ (*).