Q: Why should you be justified in picking the pockets of a vender of engravings?
A: Because he has pict-ures (picked yours). (p. 29)
* Specifically, one of these pictures, engravings from the 1847 edition of The Public and Private Lives of Animals by J.J. Grandville.
Fig. 77 – “J’accuse!”
The illustrations were considered obscene by several prominent Midwestern preachers, because animals were shown wearing pants, which suggested that they had sex organs that needed to be covered up. (Many Christian sects in the 19th Century held that, according to The Bible, animals did not have genitalia.) The scandal made Grandville’s engravings extremely fashionable and sought-after in posh New England, which made the venders willing to sell them extremely wealthy. As such, it was considered acceptable — and even pious — to rob these art dealers of their ill-gotten gains.
