Punch does not spare the intellect of the Jamaica Committee either during the Eyre Controversy. For Hasian, ‘Eyre's defenders viewed themselves as pragmatic realists who were caught in a discursive struggle with idealist philanthropists who simply did not understand the politics and pressures that were involved in colonial matters’ (86). The ignorance of the members of the Committee is emphasised when one of them makes a mistake about British history. (“Chronology in Clerkenwell”) A comrade corrects him but only makes the slip worse by mixing up dates. Punch ironically points out how this incident is ‘a gratifying proof of the progress which education has made among the masses.’ The magazine implies that perhaps the gentlemen of the Jamaican
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The not disinterested efforts of a section, and the foolish clamour of excited fanaticism, will not induce the people to prejudge the case.’ (“Wait – and Hear”) The magazine thus called the public opinion to wait for more information before drawing hasty conclusions. Diverting the abolitionists' slogan of ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’, which was meant to raise awareness about how coloured and white people were all equal and ought to be treated as such, Punch issued a cartoon in which it is a puzzled white Jamaican planter who is discriminated against. The black man who turns his back on him stands for the rebels; he looks dignified and assertive because by his side is a character from Dicken's novel The Pickwick Papers, Mr Stiggins, an evangelical parson (Levy and Peart, “Part III: The Governor Eyre Controversy” “Figure 2”). A poem accompanies the cartoon and pleads: ‘Pray you, some consideration / Show for White as well as Black. […] Wait for light, and, wanting, smother / Wrath outrageous, if you can, / Lest, while you denounce a Brother, / You prejudge a guiltless man.’ (“The White Man and Brother”) At that early stage of the Controversy, Punch already points out that the humanitarians are too quick to protest against the governor and calling for extreme measures, without knowing the full details of the
The not disinterested efforts of a section, and the foolish clamour of excited fanaticism, will not induce the people to prejudge the case.’ (“Wait – and Hear”) The magazine thus called the public opinion to wait for more information before drawing hasty conclusions. Diverting the abolitionists' slogan of ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’, which was meant to raise awareness about how coloured and white people were all equal and ought to be treated as such, Punch issued a cartoon in which it is a puzzled white Jamaican planter who is discriminated against. The black man who turns his back on him stands for the rebels; he looks dignified and assertive because by his side is a character from Dicken's novel The Pickwick Papers, Mr Stiggins, an evangelical parson (Levy and Peart, “Part III: The Governor Eyre Controversy” “Figure 2”). A poem accompanies the cartoon and pleads: ‘Pray you, some consideration / Show for White as well as Black. […] Wait for light, and, wanting, smother / Wrath outrageous, if you can, / Lest, while you denounce a Brother, / You prejudge a guiltless man.’ (“The White Man and Brother”) At that early stage of the Controversy, Punch already points out that the humanitarians are too quick to protest against the governor and calling for extreme measures, without knowing the full details of the