Exeter election, 1868, "Shakespeare illustrated." No. 7. The wail of the "times"

Exeter election, 1868, "Shakespeare illustrated." No. 7. The wail of the "times".

A black and white lithograph illustration depicting four people stood outside a washing line. Text appears on items of laundry that reads 'RADICAL CLAP TRAP' and 'RADICAL CANT "Assume a Virtue if you have it not" HAMLET Act III, Scene 4'. The pair on the left are two men, one dressed in smart clothes with his hands in his pockets in a childish stance, and the other dressed as a woman in a work dress with pinny and bonnet. He also has platforms attached to his shoes with his hands on his waist. The pair on the right is a larger man dressed as a woman, with a full thick beard wearing a dark gown and hooded bonnet holding an umbrella and the second figure, the other man, by the hand. Though he is dressed as a gentleman with suit and top hat, he is vastly smaller in size, presenting him as if he were a child. Text above the image reads 'EXETER ELECTION, 1868.' ' "SHAKESPERE [sic] ILLUSTRATED."-NO. 7. "LET THE GALLED JADES WINCE, OUR WITHERS ARE YET UNWRUNG."-Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2.' and beneath, 'THE WAIL OF THE "TIMES." "THOSE DREADFUL TORY PAPERS!" There is then a written exchange between these two female characters, followed by text that reads, 'MORAL. "Where they DO agree, - their unanimity is wonderful." SHERIDAN. -"The Critic," Act II, Scene 2. Drawn and Printed for the Publisher, by the Devon and Somerset Steam Printing Company (Limited), Exeter.'

This satirical poster is one in a series of ten illustrated by the artist G Palmer, published by the Devon and Somerset Steam Printing Company, created by the Tories inspired by lines from various works of Shakespeare (though with characters, scenarios and quotations coming from an additional mixture of literary sources.) In this poster, the 'mothers' of the two Liberal candidates are pictured highly unfavourably alongside their sons, who are depicted as children. The Friday 6 November 1868 edition of the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette states that "Number seven of the Election Caricatures was issued on Friday, and is as great "a hit" as any one of the series." The men depicted as the candidates' 'mothers' are explained by the Gazette as "the editor of the Western Times" (Thomas Latimer, who had previously been fired from the Gazette for being too radical in his views) and "the editor of the Devon Weekly Times". 

A small written scene accompanies the image, with dialogue between the two 'women' - a Mrs. "Western" and a Mrs. "Weakly" - nods to the title of the papers of the attacked editors. Mrs "Western" is pitched as the 'mother' of Liberal candidate Edgar Bowring ("what right have they got to expose my poor Hedgar?") and Mrs "Weakly'' that of Liberal candidate John Coleridge ("I'm sure the wicious things the "Flyin' Post" 'as said about my poor Johnny, is enough to break a mother's 'art"). They are discussing the ways in which the Tory leaning newspaper, The Exeter Flying Post, has treated their sons and other Liberal supporters: reference is also made to "young Hackland" and "little Master Hamberly", presumably meaning 21-year old Sir Arthur Dyke Acland, who would later become a Liberal politician and was the nephew-in-law of Conservative candidate Arthur Mills, and John Russell, Viscount Amberley, a progressive Liberal whose support of Women's Suffrage, birth control and rejection of religion cost him his seat in the South Devon election of the same year. Both 'women' are portrayed as uneducated through their lisping enunciation, with Mrs "Western" claiming, "if they'd stick to such langwage as I understand, I'd 'old my own agin a 'under'd of um...and they says everything so proper".

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