1-150-371 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'Reversing the Proverb', 1864. The Oyster where it ought to be, And Shell and Shell the Lawyer's Fee. Here, the plaintiff whose case is settled is walking away with the oyster, and the lawyer and barrister get the shells. Punch makes the point that usually it was the other way round. This cartoon may be satirising the length of the average Chancery case during the mid-Victorian period. Some of these cases might last for decades, and people joined in the case, sometimes against their wishes, were not unlikely to end up bankrupt by the costs of a case they had no desire to be involved in. From Punch, or the London Charivari, June 4, 1864.