Lincoln's Yarns and Stories

“NEUTRALITY.”

Old John Bull got himself into a precious fine scrape when he went so far as to “play double” with the North, as well as the South, during the great American Civil War. In its issue of November 14th, 1863, London “Punch” printed a rather clever cartoon illustrating the predicament Bull had created for himself. John is being lectured by Mrs. North and Mrs. South—both good talkers and eminently able to hold their own in either social conversation, parliamentary debate or political argument—but he bears it with the best grace possible. This is the way the text underneath the picture runs:

MRS. NORTH. “How about the Alabama, you wicked old man?” MRS. SOUTH: “Where’s my rams? Take back your precious consols—there!!” “Punch” had a good deal of fun with old John before it was through with him, but, as the Confederate privateer Alabama was sent beneath the waves of the ocean at Cherbourg by the Kearsarge, and Mrs. South had no need for any more rams, John got out of the difficulty without personal injury. It was a tight squeeze, though, for Mrs. North was in a fighting humor, and prepared to scratch or pull hair. The fact that the privateer Alabama, built at an English shipyard and manned almost entirely by English sailors, had managed to do about $10,000,000 worth of damage to United States commerce, was enough to make any one angry.