A Spanish satire on the Channel Tunnel attempt of 1882

Anonymous.

El Loro. ¡ yees! mi temer una invasion. [My fear is invasion!]
Barcelona: V. Perez, 1882. 4pp. Double page chromolithograph with wood-engraved heading on verso

A scarce print of a caricatured British soldier, with a pillbox hat with its strap under his nose and mutton-chop whiskers, peering down the Channel Tunnel through a telescope, fearing an invasion. He overlooks the tricoleur French rats that have reached the shells of his howitzer.
In 1875 an Act of Parliament authorised the Channel Tunnel Company to start trials and, using a rotary boring machine, a tunnel just over a mile long was dug from the bottom of Shakespeare Cliff. However public disapproval of this breech in England's natural defences caused political support to dry up. A month after this cartoon was published the project was abandoned.
'El Loro' (the Parrot) described itself as a 'Periodico Ilustrado Joco-Sério'.


Stock ID : 19850