The drawings Shannon placed in The Alarum served two purposes: making money and raising name awareness. The drawings themselves could not be sensational; they were not supposed to be artistic, but more or less amusing or entertaining.
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| Charles Shannon, in The Alarum, Vol. 1, No. 3 (3 November 1886), p. 10 |
Many of these drawings take place in society, sometimes in unfamiliar, accidental company, such as in the modern means of transport, the train. Shannon contributed two drawings to the third number of The Alarum (for the other one, see last week's blog).
In a railway carriage, a young American man sits opposite an older Englishman (hat, umbrella, lorgnon), who sits in the corner near the window. A lady, reading a newspaper, does not take part in the conversation.
First Traveller. - "I reckon, Stranger, this pace wouldn't pay in America."
Second traveller (satirically). "I suppose you go so fast you can't see the villages?"
First Traveller. - "You bet. That's nothing : they go at such a lick over there that standing in a village you can't see the train pass."
Could Shannon himself have laughed at this drawing?