ABSTRACT
In 1916, the cartoonist H.M. Bateman produced a cartoon strip entitled The Boy Who Breathed on the Glass in the British Museum (Bateman 1970). This heinous crime not only outraged society, but also resulted in the child being sentenced to decades of hard labour. On his release, as an old man, he returns to the museum and fogs the glass with his dying breath. The cartoon made a number of insightful observations about society, one of which was the way in which museums were perceived as places of sanctity in which relics were kept safe behind glass which itself was considered untouchable.
