A Day's Fishing at Sebastopol

Wood engraving

Punch 29 (6 October 1855): 137

"Hi! Jim, bring the landing net — blow'd if I hain't hooked another seventy-four."

This full-page cartoon refers to the Russians' scuttling of their own fleet at the port of Sebastopol during the Crimean War, a "seventy-four" being a 74-gun man o' war. Given the fact that British troops, unlike the French, often starved because the army had difficulty getting food from the harbor to the front, this image of a fishing sailor comes with bitter historical irony.

Related cartoons on the Crimean War

  • Bomba's Big Brother
  • What we must come to
  • Rout out of a Robber's Den
  • Boxing Day

    • Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

    [This image may be used without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose.]