Juan Martinez Villergas launched the Spanish satirical magazine El Tío Camorra (Uncle Trouble) in September 1847, and this plate is featured on the front cover of all the early issues of this short-lived venture, which was closed in July 1848. I lack the expertise to comment on his agendas, but I was struck by the opening passage from the 26 January 1848 issue, several weeks before the revolutionary disturbances that broke out elsewhere in Europe.
“Uncle Trouble has not wanted to catch the flu until now, and has had more than one reason for it. The first and foremost of all is that Uncle Trouble has a great commitment contracted with the Spanish public, and he does not want his beatings to suffer interruption [see image], I do not say for something so mean and petty as having the flu, but for all typhus and cholera around the world. So, then, although the prevailing disease has penetrated the home of the citizen of Torrelodones [i.e., JMV’s alter ego] and resolutely attacked Don Juan de la Pilindrica [his worldly mentor] and the Parrot [another prop in his dialogues], and for other instances that the flu has undertaken to meet with Uncle Trouble, this one has categorically refused to receive it, as he is willing to reject any epidemics that arise while the yokel [meaning Uncle Trouble] pursues the noble and holy mission of enlightening the people and unmasking the public villains. And in order for the flu to desist from its reckless endeavor, it was necessary to reach a compromise in the most prudent way possible, which consisted of the yokel signing a promissory note to the flu, contracting a debt that will be paid within eight days after the publication is completed. When Uncle Trouble stops writing, there will be no problem for anyone to get the flu; but meanwhile he says that it does not suit him and he will not get it. Having said that, as Uncle Trouble has the courage to not stop publishing as long as he has subscribers, and these are increasing from day to day, it turns out that the flu will no longer exist when he wants to come to collect the bill, and Uncle Trouble will get away with not getting a plague that even in name [“la grippe”] reveals his French condition.
Another reason that Uncle Trouble has had for ignoring the flu is that the Torrelodones yokel is not very fond of following fashions, and because the trans-Pyrenean disease can be considered in the day as a bad fashion that the elegant types have used to put on airs, the employees not to go to the office, the deputies not to play a sad role in Congress, etc., it would be even embarrassing for Uncle Trouble to stop giving a single beating for paying homage to a fashion as childish and ridiculous as the flu. But although Uncle Trouble has not had the flu, he is so little fond of getting up early that (at least in the cold season) rare is the day that he does not hear the twelve chimes of the clock in bed, time in which the other inhabitants of Torrelodones hurry to empty the cooking pot. For this reason, he usually receives some trustworthy visitors in the bedroom, and nothing is easier than to catch him at home during the time when the ruddy Phoebus walks halfway over our horizon.”
(El Tio Camorra, Madrid, 1848)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 