in 1894. He was a very
prolific contributor. Wallace gave up his _Punch_ connection--not, as
has been said, because the remuneration was insufficient, but because he
considered himself ill-treated. According to him, he had fully
understood that he was to succeed Miss Georgina Bowers, and with this
promotion in view, he had proceeded to Worcestershire from Manchester,
where he lived, and made preparatory studies of horse and hound and
landscape scenery. When, contrary to expectation, he found himself
passed by, he was grievously disappointed and annoyed, and refused to go
on with initials and so forth--which he drew with so much beauty and
conscientiousness. He was a secretary of the Manchester Academy of Fine
Arts, and had a considerable reputation as a wit at its councils; and
when Ford Madox Brown was engaged on his Manchester frescoes, Wallace
acted for some time as his assistant.

Then followed Colonel Ward Bennitt, late of the 5th Lancers, who drew
several initials and "socials;" but being at that time a lieutenant (in
the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons), he found that he had no time during the
day to draw for _Punch_, and that night work affected his eyesight. Mr.
J. Curren, with a couple of sketches, in 1875 and 1876; Mr. L. G.
Fawkes, of the Royal Hibernian Academy, with a single drawing in the
former year; and that clever young painter, Valentine Bromley, who died
so young after promising so well, with a single drawing, complete the
list; but there was nothing distinctive in the work of any save the
last.

[Illustration: M. BLATCHFORD.

(_From a Photograph by Warwick Brooks._)]

Mr. Montagu Blatchford, who adopted--not without success--the
Bennett-Sambourne-Wallace style of half-decorative, half-pictorial
representation, appeared towards the end of 1876; and although he was
supplanted a few years later by Mr. Harry Furniss and Mr. Wheeler, he
continued, even after 1881, to be seen fitfully in _Punch_. He was, by
profession, a carpet-designer, with unusual skill in freehand drawing;
and when in the spring of 1876 he no longer saw Mr. Sambourne's work in
the paper, he adopted the shrewd idea of sending in some sketches in
which that artist's style was respectfully imitated. But Tom Taylor was
shrewder still, and wrote: "Dear Sir,--Mr. Sambourne's absence is only
temporary. I have not, therefore, an opening for a designer to fill his
place, and return your drawings, which are very clever;" adding that he
would be