“Here Stands a Post!” by Edward Linley Sambourne (1844-1910)</span>

[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Punch —> E. L. Sambourne —> Next]

Here Stands a Post!

Edward Linley Sambourne (1844-1910)

1879

Wood engraving

Punch (9 April 1881): 159

“Essence of Parliament. Extracted from the Diary of Toby, M. P.”

Click on image to enlarge it

Image capture and text by George P. Landow.

Victorian Telecommunications (homepage)

Communcations Networks: Postal Service, Telegraph, LAN, and Internet

Victorian Eygptomania

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

At the center of Sambourne’s cartoon an upright Egyptian coffin (or its outer sarcophagus) stands in front of a building labelled “Post Office.” Crossbars with the glass insulators found on telegraph poles sprout from the sarcophagus and broken wires from them. These broken lines spell “justice,” “fair play,” “rights,” “more pay,” “longer hours,” and “overwork.” The accompanying text mocks the Home Secretary and his brother, the M. P. for Oxfordshire, for their inept, inarticulate response to the situation at the telegraph offices. They are “dumb as a post” and as deaf to issues as one.

Created 9 May 2020