"Something for Paddy" Punch, vol. 47 20 August, 1864 p. 75.
in this cartoon, the artist John Tenniel gets two birds with one stone as he insults the Irish as well as criticizing the United States of America. Each of these topics was popular in Punch at the time, however English disdain for the Irish lasted longer than any war in history. The Irish "spalpeen" (i.e. rascal) who is being lured over by the conniving Abraham Lincoln is being reprimanded by (the statue of the late) Daniel O'Connell for leaving Ireland to fight for the "Union". O,Connell, the great Irish leader in the House of Commons known as the Liberator, in 1839 founded the Repeal Association to dissolve the union between Ireland and England. Thus the cartoon's message is a complex one which implies that the Irishman will do anything for money including fighting for a foreign country to keep its Union even though he considered himself a "repealer" of the Anglo-Irish Union. Its interesting to see that Punchsided with the South even as late as August 1864. The core message is, "Lincoln is a brute and the Irish are his willing mercenaries"
[Victorian initial "I" by Harlan Wallach ©copyright 1994.]