Below you’ll see the list of allegorical concordances. I recommend Charles Francis Adams’s “Chapters of Erie” or John Steele Gordon’s The Scarlet Woman of Wall Street if you want the dirty details. The only one of uncertain about, beside the cow, is the fifth head of “the Man,” which I think is the con-artist who worked with Gould (Lord Gordon Gordon), but might be Joseph H. Ramsey (of the Albany & Susquehanna), who was also part of the conspiracy. 

Jack = Daniel Drew
Rat = Jim Fisk
Cat = Horace Greeley
Dog = Charles Dana
Cow = The Good People?
Maiden = Judge George G. Barnard
Hydra-Headed Man = Fisk, Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Boss Tweed, Lord Gordon Gordon (?)
Priest = J. P. Morgan
Cock= Governor John T. Hoffman


> On Dec 2, 2019, at 9:04 AM, Richard Henzel <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Hello everyone,
> 
> I was reading Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and became obsessed
> with the political cartoons distributed throughout the booklet by H. L.
> Stephens caricaturing Jay Gould and others involved in the Erie Railroad
> Scandal.
> 
> In his reworking of the children's nursery rhyme "The House That Jack
> Built," Stephens draws various men involved in the scandal as the animals
> and people in the story. So I'm trying to figure out is who (whom is whom?)
> in the sketches:
> 
> Jack, the jackass on the title page has the cock-eyed look of James Fisk. I
> thought Jay Gould at first, but the Eyes...
> 
> The rat is clearly Fisk (he ordered a military uniform for a photo but
> never served), the cat I can't identify, the dog has Jay Gould's beard and
> hair, the cow is labeled "The  Courts" (Barnard misspelled "Banad" for some
> reason) is the court. The maiden with the long mustache milking the cow
> branded TGP has to be Judge Barnard himself, the only figure in the scandal
> with such a long dark mustache. The man all tattered and torn has five
> heads: in front are (l to r) Gould, Fisk, and Vanderbilt, and behind them
> are two more heads. One, the bald one with chin whiskers who I believe is
> also the Cat in the previous panels.  And at the wedding, the priest
> appears to be Gould again, who is also still one of the five heads on the
> groom. So I think I've identified all of them but the cat and the balding
> fellow with the goatee in the back...
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 
> Richard Henzel

***************
Matt Seybold
Assistant Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies
Elmira College
Editor, MarkTwainStudies.org
MattSeybold.com