Honi-Soit-Qui-Mal-Y-Pense

A lion in a gentleman's suit—Britain, via the Order of the Garter motto in the title ('Shame on him who thinks evil of it')—addresses a unicorn dressed in frock coat and top hat, holding a rolled document. In the background, a figure labeled 'City of Chester' strikes a defiant pose. The caption quotes the lion urging the unicorn not to be an ass and promising 'a Special Arrangement…to secure him entire Freedom of Movement and Exemption from the formal Operation of the Law.' Nast's target is Anglo-American legal double-dealing: Britain extending diplomatic or commercial privilege that exempts its subjects from ordinary U.S. law. The unicorn's exaggerated, supplicant posture uses the era's stock caricature of the cringing petitioner, common in Victorian-era animal allegory, to mock the arrangement as naked class favoritism dressed in chivalric language.