1-150-251 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

Invasion, indeed! That's a Game Two can Play at!-Why, to hear these Poodles Talk, one would Think my Bull-dog was Dead!, 1859. John Bull stands by a board displaying bills for volunteers. He is reading a newspaper that relates the rumours that there will be a French invasion of Britain. The rumours had the effect of bringing attention to the fact that the British needed to prepare for self-defence and gave further impetous to the Volunteer movement, then in its infancy. John Bull disparagingly refers to the French as 'poodles' and implies that the only way the French could succeed would be if the British bulldog were dead. As this cartoon shows, the British bulldog, complete with an alertly cocked ear and a menacing set of fangs on display, was very much alive. The man on the right is probably meant to depict the epitome of how a volunteer in the Rifle Corps would look. From Punch, or the London Charivari, November 12, 1859.