A Pump
Charles Bennett
1857
Hand-coloured wood engraving.
6 x 5½ inches
Illustration for Bennett’s Shadows, no page number.
If obesity equals indulgence, then thinness is a sign of moral and spiritual poverty – a visual taxonomy that links Bennett with the writing of Dickens. ‘The pump’ shown here is a clergyman who exploits his congregation, but is dry in the moral and spiritual sense of the term.
Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.