Vintage voyeurism

摘要

When the government decided to split the Home Office into two separate ministries in 2007, various benefits and problems were expected. One consequence that no one foresaw was the discovery of a 200-year-old porn collection. On December 15th a ministerial delegation made its way to the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum to hand over a smutty 40-page album turned up during the departmental move last year.rnThe etchings are the work of James Gillray, one of Britain's most famous and ruthless caricaturists, who flourished at the time of the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars. His cartoons were so biting that William Pitt the Younger, prime minister of the day, paid him ￡200 a year (￡10,800, or $17,600, nowadays) to keep him onside and George IV bought his copper plates before prints could be circulated among a wider audience.