“Jew (who has been knocked down by fire engine)”, An H.G.L. Antisemitic Comic Postcard

This Edwardian comic postcard by Henry Garner of Leicester, trading as the Living Picture Post Card Co. (H.G.L.), shows a horse‑drawn fire engine racing toward a burning building while a stereotyped Jewish figure is knocked to the ground in the foreground.
The caption reads:

“Jew, (who has been knocked down by fire engine)
Go on you ungrateful wretches if it wasn’t for the likes of me, you’d have nothing to do.’”

The image and text work together to suggest that Jews cause fires, or at least profit from them, and that the fire brigade owes its livelihood to such Jewish wrongdoing. This turns the Jew into an arsonist or fraudulent profiteer, a familiar antisemitic trope in early twentieth‑century popular culture. Within the postcard trade, however, this was marketed simply as a humorous “Living Picture” comic, one of many ethnic and social stereotype cards produced by H.G.L. in the years around 1904–1910, reflecting how casual antisemitism could be packaged as everyday entertainment.

Henry Garner of Leicester was an Edwardian British postcard publisher who traded as the Living Picture Post Card Co., usually abbreviated on his cards as H.G.L. The logo shows an old ‘box-camera’ like logo with the letters H, G and L in it. The initials H.G.L. stand for Henry Garner, Leicester

What H.G.L. means on postcards

On early 20th‑century postcards, the initials H.G.L. in connection with the wording “Living Picture Post Card Co., Leicester” identify Henry Garner as the publisher. Standard postcard reference lists explicitly decode H.G.L. as “Henry Garner – Living Picture Post Card Co., Leicester, England,” so cards bearing this imprint can confidently be catalogued under his name.

The H.G.L. logo is sometimes printed as a small box‑camera emblem with the letters H, G, and L inside and the words “Registered Trade Mark” nearby, and on some divided‑back cards it appears between the words “POST” and “CARD” with the phrase “Produced entirely in England” in the stamp‑box area. Because of heavy inking or wear, the G in the center of this logo can be misread as a C, but collector and reference sources treat H.C.L. readings of this mark as errors and confirm H.G.L. as the correct interpretation. [joellesteele](https://joellesteele.com/postcard-publishers.html)

Dates and activity of the Living Picture Post Card Co.

Museum records and collector research place Henry Garner’s postcard activity in the early divided‑back period, roughly 1904–1910. For undated postcards that show the Living Picture branding, the H.G.L. initials and the typical camera trade mark or “Produced entirely in England” wording, a practical working date is circa 1904–1910, with many comic divided‑back examples likely falling between 1907 and 1909.

Types of postcards published by Henry Garner (H.G.L.)

The Living Picture Post Card Co. issued a mixture of:

• Local and regional view cards, including Leicester and other British locations. 
• Humorous “Living Picture Series” postcards, often sepia or color with a printed caption. 
• Song and sentimental cards, pairing short verses and romantic scenes. 
• Overseas and colonial views, especially a range of Toronto and other Canadian cards, showing that Garner worked for export as well as the home market.

The comic cards typically use bold outlines and flat color, characteristic of inexpensive Edwardian mass‑market lithography, and they often omit artist signatures, making the H.G.L. publisher imprint and back design the key evidence for identification. 

H.G.L. postcards, stereotypes and antisemitic humour

Some H.G.L. “Living Picture” comics take part in the broader Edwardian trade in ethnic and social stereotypes, including antisemitic themes. A small group of cards uses fire engines, fire brigades and Jewish figures to suggest that Jews cause fires or profit from them, repeating a hostile stereotype in light, joke format.

These designs are important today because they show how antisemitic ideas circulated through everyday visual ephemera rather than only through overt propaganda. For researchers documenting Jewish stereotypes on postcards, an H.G.L. imprint with the camera logo and “Living Picture” branding places such cards firmly in the Edwardian British commercial postcard industry and links them specifically to Henry Garner of Leicester. 

End of the era

According to one site, at the end of 1908 there was a dispute with a printer, Shaw and Leathjly, of Skipton, meaning that was on of his printers (or the only one). According to "Leicester Daily Post - Wednesday 20 January 1909" a judge delivered judgment in the case of S•aw And Leathley, Ltd. manufacturing stationers and printers, Bridge Works, Shipley, Yorks, versers Herry Garner, 18, London-rood. Leicester, which was a claim for picture postcards supplied.

The judge found that the cards were of inferior workmanship, and not of a merchantable value. Nineteen subjects out of the twenty-six were badly printed, and totally unsaleable. Six of the subject« were saleable, but inferior to the required standard. One subject only was up to the required standard. His Honour gave judgment for defendant. So it appears that there were no more postcards after 1909.

Here is more information

From Newspaper Comics to Picture Postcards

Who was Richard Felton Outcault?

Richard Felton Outcault (1863–1928) is often called the “father of the comic strip” for the way he helped shape modern newspaper comics and the visual language of speech balloons and sequential panels. Born in Lancaster, Ohio, he trained at the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati, then worked as an illustrator for trade magazines before heading to New York.

How did the Yellow Kid make him famous?

In the mid‑1890s Outcault began drawing a series of crowded tenement‑yard scenes for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World under the title “Hogan’s Alley.” One figure, a bald, big‑eared child in a long yellow nightshirt, quickly became the focus of the strip and of the paper’s marketing; the public knew him simply as the Yellow Kid.

The Yellow Kid strips popularized:

• Large, poster‑like panels with a strong central figure.
• Dialogue written on the front of the Kid’s nightshirt and then in speech balloons.
• A mix of slapstick humor and social observation set in New York’s working‑class streets.

The character was so successful that William Randolph Hearst lured Outcault away to draw the Yellow Kid for the rival New York Journal, turning the figure into a symbol of the “yellow journalism” circulation war.

What was Buster Brown and why did it matter?

In 1902 Outcault introduced a new strip, Buster Brown, in the New York Herald. Buster was a mischievous upper‑middle‑class boy in a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit, always accompanied by his talking dog Tige and a mock‑moral lesson at the end of each episode.

Unlike the Yellow Kid, whose merchandising was largely controlled by the newspapers, Buster Brown became the center of a planned licensing empire.

• Outcault and his agents licensed Buster to shoe companies, food brands, toy makers, and advertisers.
• The character appeared on calendars, puzzles, banks, games, and on printed ephemera like trade cards and postcards.

This shift made Outcault one of the first cartoonists to treat comic characters as valuable intellectual property rather than as disposable newspaper content.

What kinds of postcards did Outcault create?

By the early 1900s, Outcault’s style and characters were widely used on chromolithographed picture postcards, especially during the “golden age” of postcards around 1900–1910. Some cards were direct spin‑offs of his strips, while others were stand‑alone comic scenes created specifically for postcard publishers.

Common themes on Outcault postcards include:

• Valentines with a bite – humorous and often rejecting messages that draw on the “vinegar valentine” tradition, using freckle‑faced street kids, prim children, and animals to deliver insults rather than romance.
• Sports and games – baseball, football, billiards, golf and bowling scenes where mishaps on the field are turned into comic metaphors in the caption.
• Everyday mishaps – hotels, travel, courting couples, and money worries rendered as single‑panel jokes with a punchline title across the top or bottom of the card.

Many of these designs were produced with undivided backs and pre‑1907 postal regulations in mind, forcing the sender to write the message on the image side around the artwork, just as on the “SAY AU REVOIR BUT NOT GOOD BYE” card.

How did J. Ottmann Lithographing Co. work with Outcault?

A significant portion of Outcault’s postcard work is associated with the J. Ottmann Lithographing Company of New York. These cards usually carry both a copyright line such as “COPYRIGHT 1905 BY J. OTTMANN LITH. CO. N.Y.” and a scripted artist credit “R. F. Outcault,” sometimes integrated into the artwork.

One documented 1905 series combines sports scenes (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton football as well as baseball, bowling, and golf) with Outcault’s signature and Ottmann’s imprint, all printed in strong color on standard postcard stock. Collectors today value these issues not only for their art but also as evidence of how major lithographic houses helped commercialize comics beyond the newspaper page.

How should we read the stereotypes in his postcards?

As with many early 20th‑century postcards, some Outcault designs trade in racial and ethnic caricatures that are jarring and offensive today. An example held by a national museum shows a Black child eating watermelon, combining Outcault’s name with a racist stereotype that was then widespread in American popular culture.

For historians and collectors, such cards are important primary sources documenting:

• The everyday circulation of racist imagery in advertising and humor.
• The role of comics and postcards in normalizing stereotypes for mass audiences.

Acknowledging this context is essential when presenting Outcault’s work today, whether in exhibitions, blogs, or catalogues.

What is Richard Felton Outcault’s legacy for postcard collectors?

Outcault gradually withdrew from daily newspaper deadlines, devoting more time to painting and to managing his licensing portfolio. He died in 1928, but his innovations in layout, speech balloons, and character merchandising shaped both newspaper comics and the way cartoon figures moved into other media, including postcards and advertising ephemera.

For postcard specialists, Outcault sits at the intersection of early comics history and the commercial postcard boom: a single artist whose lines and jokes can be traced from the Sunday supplement to the postcard rack.