A man grimaces and closes his eyes. His fingers are long and pointed. He wears a long red coat and a top hat., Text: It seems to be me some men are born / Who only merit wise men's scorn; / Who by mean acts well merit hate-- / Such is your kind and such your fate., Provenance: McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector.
A school master holds a student by his hair and prepares to hit his backside with a twig broom. A donkey is drawn on the blackboard in the background., Text: A MODEL School Master you are, there’s no doubt, / Some put knowledge in, but you beat it all out; / With your lunatic whipping, your kicks and your thumps, / You can bring out an ape’s phrenological bumps; / And if you’re promoted to suit able schools, / It should be a college of asses and mules., Provenance: Helfand, William H..
Plate from a children's moral instruction book showing three boys mistreating a horse on a dirt path. One boy, attired in a jacket and pants rides the crouching, saddleless horse, raised stick in hand, as the other two boys, stand on either side of the animal, raised sticks in hand. One boy, in the right foreground, wears no shoes. Bushes, weeds, rocks, and a small body of water line the dirt path. A house with a smoking chimney is visible in the right background., Not in Wainwright., Issued as plate in series Picture lessons, illustrating moral truth. For the use of infant-schools, nurseries, Sunday-schools & family circles (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 146 Chestnut Street, between 1847 and 1853)., Originally accompanied by text titled "Kindness to Animals" moralizing that it is wrong to abuse "poor dumb beasts whom God has put in their power.", Philadelphia on Stone, POSP 293, Gift of Michael Zinman.
Date
[ca. 1850]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *GC - Morality [P.2017.28]
A man holding a piece of rope stands over a woman with a black eye who is kneeling on the floor. On the wall behind them is a clock with a disapproving face. The sender criticizes the recipient's brutish behavior in beating his wife and suggests that many of the neighbors share his opinion., Text: Ill looking, ill conditioned Brute, / What punishment your crime will suit, / That coward from I’d naked strip, / And put in each neighbour’s hand a whip / To hunt you as they would a beast, / From North to South, From West to East, / Until you knelt at spousy’s feet, / Humbly for pardon to entreat., "199", Provenance: Helfand, William H..
The valentine shows a tall, thin man kneeling as he holds a baby. He prepares food on a spider pan over a candle. The valentine suggests that the man is weak and child-like, and his wife is an abuser of both him and the baby., Text: Don't strike and thump him, baby Dick, / Leave 'ma to hit him many a lick; / 'Tis her he fears, not you, who squall, / He trembles so, he'll let you fall -- / Poor, shivering, nussing skeleton, / With cuffs for teaching, when he's done., Provenance: McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector.
