'A Spelling Bee' — J. L. Toole, Comedian

Spy renders John Laurence Toole — the beloved comic actor and close friend of Henry Irving — as a squat, top-heavy figure in funeral black, his oversized auburn-haired head tilted with a knowing smirk. The exaggeration is affectionate: Toole was famous for playing knockabout Cockney grotesques, and the caricature amplifies his broad, rubbery face and stubby frame to match his stage persona. The caption 'A Spelling Bee' refers to the 1875 farce of that name in which Toole had scored a recent hit at the Gaiety Theatre. No ethnic caricature is operative here; the distortion is purely comic-physical, in the tradition of affectionate theatrical celebrity prints Ward produced throughout the 1870s.