3-020-997 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"No Thoroughfare", by P. MacNab, in the Exhibition of the Society of British Artists, 1869. 'This little rustic incident shows a boy, boylike, ready to explore forbidden ground in defiance of all authority, and a girl, girl-like, restraining him, from her feminine instinct of obedience. What mischief this little urchin would commit beyond plucking wild flowers or blackberry-gathering we are not prepared to say; but to many who would certainly do no mischief at all - as, for example, artists on a sketching expedition - the threats of "prosecuting trespassers with the utmost rigour of the law" are often sufficiently provoking. However, such threats are commonly disregarded, and very rarely is any attempt made to carry them into execution, except it may be by the vulgar millionaire, the nouveau riche overweeningly proud of his new character of landed proprietor. Almost invariably, the higher and older the family the more tolerant is the proprietor of intrusion on his domain'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.