backbone--the muscles--the very
integuments of so many others,--"what a fine eye the artist has, what a
skilful hand, and what a sympathy for the wild and dreadful!"

[Illustration:
_Designed, Etched and Published by_ GEORGE CRUIKSHANK._November 1st,
1829._

THE GIN SHOP.

"--now, Oh dear, how shocking the thought is,
They makes the gin from aquafortis:

They do it on purpose folks' lives to shorten,
And tickets it up at two-pence a quartern."--_New Ballad._

_Face p. 184._]

From an early period of his career as an etcher and designer, George had
waged a deadly war with gin,--that potent, insidious, and evil spirit of
London; the most priceless services he rendered to the cause of
temperance being unquestionably given long before he had any notion of
joining the ranks of the total abstainers. Like the _Triumph of Cupid_,
the well-known _Gin Juggernaut_ of the "Sketch Book" requires nothing
more than a passing allusion. An example less known but quite as
admirable will be found in the "Scraps and Sketches." It is called _The
Gin Shop_,[92] and shows us the interior of a London gin palace. In
place of the usual barrels, around the walls are ranged coffins,
labelled respectively: "Deady's Cordial;" "Blue Ruin;" "Gin and
Bitters;" the largest (a huge one) being marked "Old Tom." Death,
habited as a watchman, has baited a huge gin trap, wherein stand five
persons (two of them children, besides a baby in arms), _all_ imbibing
the deadly liquid. The wretched woman with the infant has actually
placed her foot on the spring, and so great is the artist's power of
realization, that we momentarily expect to see the horrible thing close
with a snap! A skeleton, whose fleshless skull is masked with a pleasant
female countenance, officiates as barmaid, and behind her yawns a pit,
on the further side of which a circle of evil spirits curvet around a
huge still. Just such a weird scene as would strike a sympathetic chord
in the artist's fancy was found for him in Scott's novel of "Red
Gauntlet." The episode selected for illustration is the frightful
adventure of Hutcheon and Dougal MacCallum. "When midnight came, and the
house was quiet as the grave, the silver whistle sounded as sharp and
shrill as if Sir Robert was blowing it, and up got the two old
serving-men and tottered into the room where the dead man lay. Hutcheon
saw enough at the first glance; for there were torches in the room,
which show