A Pump

Charles Bennett

1857

Hand-coloured wood engraving.

6 x 5½ inches

Illustration for Bennett’s Shadows, no page number.

If obesity equals indulgence, then thinness is a sign of moral and spiritual poverty – a visual taxonomy that links Bennett with the writing of Dickens. ‘The pump’ shown here is a clergyman who exploits his congregation, but is dry in the moral and spiritual sense of the term.

Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.

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