McLoughlin Bros ID and Date

[Butch7999]

Having done quite a bit of research on McLoughlin's baseball-related material, we're a bit embarrassed to admit that we don't know
the exact source of that image. We'd swear we've seen it, or something very much like it, elsewhere on an ancient trade card
(ah, of course, the fellow on the 1860s Peck & Snyder cards -- similar but not matching).

Scott's (sb1) excellent research seems pretty conclusive, though, as to an approximate date -- mid-to-late 1870s, maybe 1880,
but it seems unlikely a military school cadet would have been much older than 21-22, so we'd doubt later than 1880.

The style of cap, apron-front shirt, long pants, billy-goat beard, multi-sectioned ball, and gloveless hands (are they gloveless?
-- different color than face, no fingernails) all suggest pre-1880 antiquity as well, although McLoughlin in particular were notorious
for using illustrations showing far, far older styles of equipment than were in vogue at the the time of publication.

Our best guess would be that it's a page cut from any one of dozens of possible candidates among McLoughlin's hundreds
of picture-and-rhyme books for kids published in that era. It's curious, though, given McLoughlin's exacting standards
in high-end printing, that the color appears off-register in places.

In case, wonderful artifact!