Touched with white and inscribed in pencil with the artist's instructions to the engraver: Lighter -- Light on cap -- A mark on nose to cut away cutting of jaw rather hard -- Trouser lighter. There is a dark mark just above the man's knees which looks like a join in the block, & which should be got rid of.--Soften smoke a little -- Arm -- A touch on eye; at head of sheet: 4 proofs full colour (not later than Saturday).
Touched proof on India paper of a wood engraving by Butterworth & Heath of an illustration by Tenniel for Samuel Carter Hall's: An old story : a temperance tale in verse. London : Virtue, 1875, p. 32 (facing).
Illustration shows a squalid room where a woman lies dead on the floor beside an overturned table and a man sits slumped unconscious in a chair with an empty bottle on the floor beneath him.