1-150-358 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'The Pig and The Peasant', 1863. Peasant says: Ah! I'd Like To Be Cared Vor Half As Well As Thee As Thee Be! Here, Mr Punch highlights the problem by neatly contrasting the fat, healthy pigs and piglets in the clean, hay-filled sty. Looking gloomily over the wall is the unkempt, thin, representative of the rural worker, and in the background can be seen the worker's dilapidated, tumbledown cottage. The year's harvest had been good, but little benefit would come the way of the rural workers on whom the harvest, and the nation's wellbeing, so much depended. At this time, although great efforts were being made to assist the Lancashire victims of the Cotton Famine, and the plight of the urban poor was the subject of much discussion, the plight of the average rural worker continued to be overlooked. From Punch, or the London Charivari, September 19, 1863.