3-020-991 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Left Out In The Cold," by J. Ritchie, from the Winter Exhibition at the French Gallery, Pall-Mall,1869. Engraving of a painting. 'What ruthless town has our poor wanderer reached that has had the heart to treat him with this ignominy and cruelty?...that an itinerant musician..., a vocal performer of solos with accompaniment of the dulcet guitar, a direct descendant and representative of bard, and troubadour...a gentleman who...wears the hat and feather and mantle of a cavalier - stay, what if it even be a lover in disguise planning an elopement! - that such a one, we say, should be seized and so vilely confined, exposed to the jeers, snowballs, and worse missiles of irreverent boys and men, as a common "vagrant" is really too bad. That, further, this should happen in winter's cold and snow, and, as the title seems to imply, that he is left forgotten...to face a bitter night and certain frost-bite, is, we repeat, really too bad. His guitar seems to be thrown beyond his reach, and likewise broken...the "notice" placard to "vagrants" is signed the "Lord Protector."...an unlucky Cavalier of musical tastes, or perhaps reduced by losses and reverses in the Royalist cause to wander as mendicant minstrel, is the victim of Roundhead vengeance'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.