PLEASE GIVE ME A PENNY! 1891 Sir John Tenniel George Goschen PUNCH CARTOON PAGE

Original 10 3/4 inch x 8 1/8 inch Single-Sided Wood Engraved Cartoon page titled PLEASE GIVE ME A PENNY! from Punch, April 25, 1891.

George Joachim Goschen (1831 – 1907) was a British statesman and businessman best remembered for being "forgotten" by Lord Randolph Churchill. He was initially a Liberal, then a Liberal Unionist before joining the Conservative Party in 1893. Goschen served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for six years, from 1886 to 1892. It was a relatively successful tenure, Goschen managing to reduce the national debt and cut interest payments considerably. The biggest challenge of this period was managing the Baring Crisis of late 1890, and the short but severe recession which followed. In a speech at Leeds in 1891, citing the shortfall of gold reserves, Goschen famously made a proposal to allow the Bank of England to issue £1 notes to substitute the gold sovereign (by the prior banking acts, its lowest denomination note was £5 notes), thereby, allowing the Bank to mop up some estimated £30m worth of gold that was needless circulating as coinage in the British empire. Although well-received in several quarters, the scheme was not taken up.

The cartoon was wood engraved by Joseph Swain (1820 -1909) from an illustration by Sir John Tenniel (1820 - 1914), both were regulars on Punch magazine.

Punch, or The London Charivari, was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration.

The page is in very good condition. Reverse side blank.