Caught in the Act

This chromolithograph by Tom Merry satirizes government revenue from publicans' licenses through a visual pun: police 'catch' a pickpocket stealing a license from a publican, depicting the license itself as the real theft. The scene unfolds in an interior with period detail—top hats, formal dress, gilt furnishings—rendering absurdity with precise draftsmanship typical of late-Victorian satirical prints. Merry's work descends from Gillray and Rowlandson's tradition of political caricature, wherein exaggerated figures and impossible scenarios made arguments about power and profit. The chromolithographic process allowed bright color registration, expanding satire's popular reach. Here, the joke indicts licensing policy as legalized plunder—the government's licensed extortion mirrored in street crime, both presented as inevitable. Such prints circulated widely, shaping public opinion on fiscal and social questions before cinema and mass media.