Content note: Caricature of a hanged man and a figure taking tea beside him, depicting a real execution (Charles Stokes, 1895). This object is shown as it was published. Why
"Petite scène du Congo": Brussels humorous-paper cartoon on the hanging of Stokes, reproduced in the Pall Mall Gazette, 1895
Newspaper clipping showing a sketch headed "Petite scène du Congo": a hanged man in a pith helmet dangles from a tree while a caricatured figure in a pith helmet sits at a camp table taking tea beside him; a French caption runs beneath and English text above and below. The tell: the hanged Englishman and the grotesque onlooker with a teacup are drawn as caricature with no account of the charge, so the picture does the labelling (name-calling).
- Date
- 1895
- Period
- Pre-1914
- Made by
- Brussels humorous paper (name partly illegible), as reproduced in the Pall Mall Gazette, 19 October 1895
- Country
- Belgium
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- Belgian Monarchy
- Leader
- Leopold II
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Techniques
- Name-calling
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain in the US (pre-1931); LOC: "No known restrictions on publication"
Pall Mall Gazette, 19 October 1895 (wood engraving and text). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-cph-3a50658.
Text on the object
We have the pleasure to present our readers this morning with a Belgian view of the Stokes case. The elegant little sketch is borrowed from [illegible], a humorous paper published, in the Marché-aux-Poires, Brussels. The picture is headed "Petite Scène du Congo" - an episode of Congolese [illegible], as we might call it. Commentary on the beauties of the drawing would be [illegible] [French caption under the sketch, only partly legible:] Le [illegible] anglais Stokes [illegible] les petits officiers du Gouvernement congolais, [illegible] [lower columns: further English commentary, illegible at this resolution]
Not translated: the French caption is too partly legible to render faithfully.
Only the introductory English text is reasonably legible; the remainder is marked [illegible] rather than guessed.
