Puck's Review of the Past Year

At the close of 1884 Puck unfurls the year in a single ribboning banner, lithographic pen in hand, replaying the cartoons the magazine had already fired off. The scenes scroll past like a newsreel: the British Lion and the Mahdi locked over Egypt and the Sudan, France and China fighting in Tonquin, James G. Blaine chasing the presidency he would lose, Chester Arthur rising, the Tammany tiger beaten down, bosses John Kelly and Ben Butler mugging as vaudeville turns, the Independent vote linking arms with Grover Cleveland, and the millionaires Jay Gould and William H. Vanderbilt. 1884 was Puck's great year; its campaign against Blaine helped elect Cleveland. Here is the magazine grading its own report card, and finding it good.