Andrew Leonard seems to be amazed that somebody Way Back When would have printed a satiric cartoon showing bare boobs (much the way a kid in school would react to seing the same in a school library book). Actually, a lot of humorous drawings back then showed nudity and vulgarity, depicting their targets with not only lecherous, but scatalogical humor. An example of the latter is a Civil War cartoon depicting a Confederate recruiting station where, among other things, a small dog is busy urinating on a sleeping drunk.

True, the point of this particluar satire is rather vague, especially if you're looking for deep thoughts in this picture. But the same can be said of half of today's political cartoons, many of which never get beyond depicting George Bush as short, Bill Clinton as lecherous, SOutherners as driving battered pickup trucks or government workers covered with spiderwebs.

Tipu Sultan may be lionized and romanticized in India ("oh look how valiantly he fought till his dying moment!"), but he keep in mind he was no less a tyrant compared to the other existing ones(kings and princes) during his time as well as ones preceding him. These guys built lavish costly palaces on the backs of poor people, among of host other thinggs when they could have been spending their money on the development of poor and their region. Did Tipu Sultan need a harem? What, one woman wasnt enough for him?

Maybe you should look at this from the harem's point of view: Tipu Sultan was one tyrant who used and abused them, the British were next.. and British are now replaced by globalized Indians

The attitude of the British publc towards their Army at that time was uniformly negative - it was considered that only the indigent and criminal joined the ranks, and the officers were looked down on by the aristocracy. As they didn't think that much of non-British peoples either, the print was basically both satirizing the boorish Army and presenting a racy scene for the amusement of the public.

(BTW, in 1799 Napoleon had just begun his ascent and few in England would have noticed him, much less thought him worth a satiric print)

To have carnal relations in.

This sort of caricature is perfectly normal for the time - the only thing that is exceptional is that it is Indians being rogered, and not British females. Let's not forget that the 18th century saw the first real flowering of erotica and pornography, both in literature and the visual arts. This was the age of Fanny Hill and Sade and Restif de la Bretonne, and all the scandalous literature was copiously illustrated.

Tipu sultan was from southern Indian state and one of the last Islamic rulers dominating India. The Middle Eastern cultural imperialism and forced religious conversions lasted long time and they all had harems! So, there is no great insight in the cartoon other than the depiction of an event where the new rulers just gotten little worse. If it is meant to be entertaining, I did not get it! I am sure the spin master Tony Blair can claim that the great British soldiers freed the women in the Harems who slept with Tipu (by essentially raping the whole harem) just the same way Tony and Bush think they are freeing people in Iraq. The British still lament about their days of Raj as if it was a great time! I am not sure if countless rape, public shooting and STD raging havoc are really a great time for the oppressed in Indians! Still the comment from H.Fleiss seems to be equating Indian independence to the continuation of same form of torture and oppression of Indians by invaders who started to pour in 1206 i.e. 800 years back. So, the globalized Indians and the democracy in India is imperfect yet strong because it perished longer than any other country on the face of earth. An indigenous group of people who were at the peak of their free society were robed 750 years of their history by Persian and Arabic invaders who preached hatred before and continue today the same way. The cartoon just showed oppression by British which many British historians painted as something that led to the enlightened Indians of today and taught them democracy. So, it is a sad commentary on the time that is in India's past.

Tipu hated the Brits. He expressed this hatred by having a mechanical model built of a tiger devouring a Brit. You turn the handle, & it makes the appropriate movements, with built in sound effect.

see:-

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1196_encounters/exhibition/tippoo/tippoo_window.html

And Mr. Leonard is surprised? So much for the myths of "gentle" "civilizing" white man! The cartoons depicting the rape of Tipu's harem are not a surprise to any Indian - me included. Neither are they satiric! The British did as good a job of raping local women back then as the US troops are doing of raping Iraqi women today. And the society that these soldiers belong to is doing just as well in looking away, pretending none of it is happening (except in some academic metaphorical way - "rape" of India/Iraq/Africa/any other place that is occupied) or that it is justifiable.

So the cartoons point out that nothing much changes....

What on earth does "Harrah my Honey now for the Black Joke" MEAN???

I wondered that myself, so I did a quick Google search. From http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/BLACK.htm :

"'The Black Joke' was a widely popular street song in England in the early 1700's. That it was extremely vulgar and bawdy probably in no small way contributed to its continued popularity into the 19th century in that country and its colonies (including America)."

See the link for *much* more detail.