ngular
precision and skill, and full of character, seemed to hit the popular
taste, and, save for a period when ill-health interrupted, Mr. Shepherd
has continued his contributions. He was a pupil of Mr. Alfred Bryan, and
for a couple of years was on the staff of "Moonshine." Another recruit
of 1894 was Mr. A. S. Boyd, one of the most brilliant of the "Daily
Graphic" staff, and still affectionately remembered as "Twym" of the
"Bailie" and "Quiz" of Glasgow. His first contribution (April 7th) was a
sketch of a lady in an omnibus, whose outrageously large sleeves
extinguished her neighbours as effectually as the crinoline of her
grandmother (according to John Leech) had cancelled her grandfather.
Since that time Mr. Boyd has been seen fitfully in _Punch_, and always
with drawings executed with great care and with singular appreciation of
the value of his blacks.

[Illustration: PHIL MAY.

(_Drawn by Himself._)]

Then came Mr. Phil May. _Punch_ was long in discovering him, but he
found him at last. Indeed, he could not afford to do without him, for
Mr. May, though barely more than thirty years of age, was already in the
foremost rank of humorous draughtsmen of the day, and few--even of Mr.
Punch's own Staff--were better known and more popular than the young
artist who had burst upon the town not long before. He had gone through
a hard life as a boy. He had turned his back upon architecture, as
Charles Keene, Mr. Moyr Smith, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Bernard Partridge, and
other contributors to _Punch_ had done before him, and had joined a
strolling company, with whom he strolled and acted for four years,
drawing caricatures of his fellow-actors for the shop-windows. He was
only fourteen when he began sketching for a Yorkshire paper, and four
years later he came to town and, after an interval of the direst want,
soon made his mark. At that time he had evidently been looking at Mr.
Sambourne's drawings, but a three years' visit to Australia, aided by
the bitter experience of Melbourne newspaper printing presses,
simplified his style to the point we now see it--in which elimination of
all unnecessary lines seems carried to its furthermost limit. Indeed,
his "economy of means" borders on parsimony. Gifted with a powerful
personality, with the keenest sense of humour, and with strong human
sympathies that lean much more to the side of the poor than of the
well-to-do, and, above all, with a brilliant power of draughtsmanship,
he was