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THE TOMAHAWK. A SATURDAY JOURNAL OF SATI...
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No. T 45-] . LONDON, FEBRUARY 12, 1870. ...
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ON THE ROCKS.
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What crueller sight can there be than th...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The Tomahawk. A Saturday Journal Of Sati...
THE TOMAHAWK . A SATURDAY JOURNAL OF SATIRE . ft MK < £ Mtet > bp & xtt ) UT m ,, _^ a'Wcckett * ) "INVITAT CULPAM QUI PECCATUM PRETERIT . "
No. T 45-] . London, February 12, 1870. ...
No . T 45- ] . LONDON , FEBRUARY 12 , 1870 . [ Price Twopence .
On The Rocks.
ON THE ROCKS .
What Crueller Sight Can There Be Than Th...
What crueller sight can there be than the view of a noble ship going to pieces ? There is something very painful in the prospect of a wreck . Years of labour are as nought , the work of many hands is as nothing . The planks so carefully lashed together separate , and are tossed about at the mercy of the angry waves—the sails so laboriously woven are torn into ribbandsand flutter in the gale , at the will of the noisy winds . Helpless as a child , the great work is dashed upon the rock , groans , trembles , and disappears . Disappears to be seen no more ! A noble ship has gone to pieces—her timbers are to be found on the treacherous rocks of Ireland . The ship was built to supersede an ungainly barque that had breasted the waves for many a long year in spite of rotten planks and threadbare canvas . The first ship carried a flag inscribed " Tyranny , " and was worthy of her name . She was manned with bigots and misers—she carried intolerance for ballast , injustice for merchandize . She had been built at a time when it was great to be cruel , diplomatic to be unjust . Old fashioned , and yet she served her time , and would have lasted to this day had not her owners condemned her as bad and unworthy of the age we live in—condemned her that they might replace her with something better . The new ship was sound from masthead to keel . Her timbers were strong , her sails trustworthy , and yet in spite of sails and timbers she lies stranded on the rocks of Erin a wreck—a ruin ! To drop allegory for factthe new measures to cure Fentanism and annihilate Irish discontent , have signally failed . Spite the Church Disestablishment , spite the project for giving the soil to the people who till it , agrarian outrage has steadily increased . Daily , nay , almost hourly , the cloud grows darker and darker . Doctors are forbidden , under pain of deathto extend their , merciful aid to the sick . Counsel are deterred by threats of violence from the exercise of their mission to defend the weak or to bring the guilty to justice . Landlords are shot for living on their land , or denounced as traitors worthy of the murderer's knife if they become absentees . There is no lawno , mercy , no religion . The " island of saints " is , indeed , in a pitiful condition . Granted that our fellow subjects have had much to complain of , granted that they have for centuries been regarded as traitors—treated as slaves . Granted that the emerald has given place to the ruby—the green fields have been deluged with red blood—the blood of the poor , the starving—yet still mercy
should not be received with murder , justice hailed with shouts of vengeance and cries for the lives of those who now have extended the hand of friendship and charity to the bondsmen of yesterday , the tyrants of to-day . Has it come to this that the iron has so entered into the soul of poor suffering Erin that she at last has learned only how to hate , has forgotten , quite forgottenhow to love ? At one time an Irishman was the type , of true nobility—now he finds his peers on the scaffold , his appropriate resting place in a prison grave , beside the bodies of murderers and thieves ! Teach a slave that he is an animal—burden him with chains , and keep him in bondage for years , and you will find a servant fiercer than a tiger , less to be relied upon than a bloodhound that has received but half his training . He will work for you sullenly with the fear of the whip for ever before his eyes . Keep that whip before his eyes , and he may serve you to the end . But once relieve him from his bondage , and proclaim yourself weak , and your safety is gone for ever . Is it so with the Irish ? Have our ancestors so persecuted them that they cannot forgive usour ancestors' descendants ? Is it that they have the brutality of , the ex-slave ?—have lost all the kindliness that once was their characteristic and their boast ? We fear so . They have met moderation with scorn—welcomed justice with murder ! With the coming session the next hundred years of Ireland's civil history will be decided . This week Parliament reassembles , and Erin will be called before the bar of public Qpinion . What will she answer to the many charges that will be made against her ? Will she justify the assassin ?—succour the traitor ? Will she find a grim jest in " bundling " a landowner ?—an act of patriotism in threatening a barrister ? Will she support the murderer and defend the rowdy ? These are serious questions , and she must answer them . Her future depends upon her reply . Which shall she be—a happy land of freedom ? or a nest of crime and ignorance ? Would that St . Patrick was once more standing upon her shores . He would find plenty of reptiles to expel—reptiles more nauseous than toads—more deadly than vipers . The end never justifies the means ; we must not be unjust . Ireland must retain her freedom , io . spite of the return she has made for the gift . Still , we must teach these poor prisoners , so unaccustomed to the bright glare of liberty , that everything is to be gained by argument—nothing by force . Our second act must be to redress the wrongs of Ireland— our // rs / , to stamp out murder . Until rifles arc given up , and the knife is hidden for everwe can do nothing . Liberty is not for assassins—, freedom is not for cowards .
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Citation
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Tomahawk (1867-1870), Feb. 12, 1870, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/t/issues/ttw_12021870/page/3/
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