_Punch_ is ironically sympathetic, again, in his comment on the statement that "About 130 letters awaited Dr. Jameson ... many of them containing offers of marriage." A few months later, however, _Punch_ supported the demand for his release on account of ill-health. The cartoon based on Mr. Rhodes's resignation in May is headed, "The Pity of it." South Africa (as Othello) says to him: "Cassio, I love thee; but never more be officer of mine." _Punch_ adds as his authority a statement in _The Times_: "Mr. Rhodes has no longer any power of assailing or menacing the Transvaal. The military authority in the Company's territory is in the hands of Sir Richard Martin. The administration is in the hands of Lord Grey." It was about the same time that _Punch_ published a design for a statue of Krüger, in which the British Lion is shown in chains while Chamberlain kneels obsequiously to the President.
South Africa was not our only source of anxiety in 1896. Indeed, it may be said to have temporarily receded into the background as a storm centre. For our strained relations with the United States over the Venezuelan arbitration had been brought to a critical stage by President Cleveland's message. The conciliatory speeches of Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Balfour in January led _Punch_ to represent them in the act of placating the American Eagle with caresses and sugar. He was better inspired in his open letter to Mr. W. D. Howells, the distinguished American writer, recognizing his generous and courageous efforts to create a better mutual understanding between the two countries. In particular he saluted the "Golden words" in which Mr. Howells criticized his own countrymen:--
"What I chiefly object to in our patriotic emotion, however, was not that it was so selfish but that it was so insensate, so stupid. It took no account of things infinitely more precious than national honour, such as humanity, civilization, and
which must suffer in a conflict between peoples like the English and the Americans. For the sake of having our ships beat their ships, our poor fellows slaughter their poor fellows, we were all willing, for one detestable instant at least, to have the rising hopes of mankind dashed, and the sense of human brotherhood blunted in the hearts of the foremost people of the world."