3-061-243 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

'The Political Drama No. 4: John Bull; or, an Englishman's fireside!', 1834-1835. 'Here's a pretty pass things are come to! This is Observing the Sabbath with a vengeance! Didn't get my week's wages last night till all the shops were shut up. Musn't go out except to chapel; not a crust in the house; not even a drop o' tea in the pot, no 'bacca [tobacco], not fire, no soap to shave myself with, and no nothing, an armed blue Devil [policeman] parading about the Street. So here I must sit a free born Briton, and listen to the Chapel Bell over the way, Praying next door, and Psalm singing in the cellar'. In a bare room with no fire, an emaciated John Bull is sitting on a chair, shivering; a policeman is outside the window. The subject is the proposed, 'Sabbath Bill', which was set to drastically control activities on the Sabbath. From The Political Drama [A series of caricatures].