Below, the March 11, 2026 cover page of the (New York) Daily Graphic — the first of approximately a dozen sequential strips by artist Charles Jay Taylor, appearing in the Daily Graphic in 1881 and 1882, and featuring William H. Vanderbilt as the main character.

In this outing — titled Our Captious Artist’s Interpretation of a Celebrated Interview — Taylor has lifted the words from a New York Herald interview with Vanderbilt — an interview which basically amounted to a complimentary fluff piece on the infamous robber baron and stock manipulator — then, added cartoons to illustrate Taylor’s interpretation of what went on during the interview. We see Vanderbilt plying the Herald reporter with food and drink (mostly drink). We see a politician showing up to to report to Vanderbilt that he’d put through his railroad bill, even as Vanderbilt scoffs at a question on whether he controls the legislatures of New York and Pennsylvania. We are shown see him shearing lambs, while denying he control speculations on Wall Street (in Wall Street’s lingo, “shearing lambs” means relieving novices — i.e., the speculating general public — of their money). Etc.

Click on comic, to expand it, and read for yourself.

Tomorrow — Episode Two! Click here to find the other 1881-82 William Vanderbilt comic strips posted so far.

And on a side-note, William H. Vanderbilt’s great-great-great-granddaughter, Wendy Burden, has written a humorous memoir about the downfall of the modern Vanderbilt descendants, titled Dead End Gene Pool. Check it out.

Click here to find both the prior Wall Street Frauds Make Wonderful Cartoons entries, and related I.T.C.H. posts. This series will continue, while the debate on financial reforms continues in Congress (except Mondays and holidays, on which I already had other material planned).

Doug Wheeler

financial reform

NYDailyGraphic