1-150-320 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'Too Civil by Half', 1862. Dressed as matrons, the Conservatives Lord Derby (with the glasses) and Disraeli have come to pay a social call on the Liberal Prime Minister, Palmerston. This illustrates the amount of social calling, and the conventions surrounding the practice, that ladies of the middle and upper classes would do. Palmerston is not at all keen that the visit should be repeated as he is determined that they - the Conservatives - should not get in again. In full agreement with this, Lord Russell - usually depicted as a small boy - thumbs his nose just as a small boy would at the visiting 'ladies'.