1-150-513 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'Check to King Mob', 1867. Britannia meting out justice to King Mob and the message is that a similar fate will befall those who commit such terrible crimes. In an echo of the method of execution, her hand has a tight and compressing grip on the throat of the Fenian outlaw. In mid-September 1867, a number of Fenians had cold-bloodedly murdered a policeman in Manchester. A number of Fenian activists had been arrested and committed for trial and, at the beginning of November, five of these men were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. A deputation of sympathisers had forced their way in to see the Home Secretary, Mr Hardy, demanding he commute the sentence. The deputation had had to be removed by the police. On the 23rd November, three of the men, Allen, Larkin and Gould, were executed in Manchester. From Punch, or the London Charivari, November 30, 1867.