The Folly of Crime
John Leech
Steel-plate etching by Cruikshank
8 x 5½ inches
George Cruikshank’s Table Book, facing 45.
This is a prime example of Cruikshank’s Hogarthian moralizing, with the fate of a man stupid enough to pursue a life of crime mapped out in a series of narrative compartments. The artist uses a pungent imagery, dressing the character in a clown’s costume when he commits his felonies and as a convict burdened with a coffin-shaped sentence, spending his time in prison on the treadmill, in wretched isolation or in chains.[See below for commentary.]
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Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.