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THE TOMAHAWK. A SATURDAY JOURNAL OF SATI...
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No. 141.] ~ LONDON, JANUARY 15, 1870. [P...
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<< TIME WILL SHO XV!"
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The new year has begun, and already the ...
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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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 . < £ tutei » lip & xtt ) UT h 3 Beckett . I "INVITAT CULPAM QUI PECCATUM PRETERIT . "
No. 141.] ~ London, January 15, 1870. [P...
No . 141 . ] ~ LONDON , JANUARY 15 , 1870 . [ Price Twopence .
≪≪ Time Will Sho Xv!"
<< TIME WILL SHO XV !"
The New Year Has Begun, And Already The ...
The new year has begun , and already the pen grows accustomed to the fi gures 1870 . The old yearwith its sad me-, mories and failures and discontent , has faded away for ever . Would that its abuses were equally things of the past ! Would that starvation and bungling and official murder were carried away in the funeral cortege of the year just dead—carried away never to see the earth again ! Would that we could welcome a millennium , when the working men would cease from grumbling and the Poor-law Guardians would be at rest ! Visionary abuses , some fleeting as shadows , and as unsubstantial , —real abuses , others lasting as steel , and as hurtful . Old Father Time conjures up the shadows , and it is he who fixes them for awhile , or permits them to depart . Let us watch him , as he moves the slides of his lantern , and old pictures dissolve into new—as 186 9 gives way to 1870 . Time takes a slide marked 1869 , anc * we see a vision of an Emperor , despotic and fearful , seeking to rid himself of the power that has become a burden to him—of a ruler who has made his own throne , has given his own country twenty years of a glorious history—of a man who has grown old and grey in the State ' s service—of a father who has a wife to preserve and a son to establish on the throne of his own making—on that throne which will be the cause of so much contention when he is dead . And the slide dissolves into the picture of 1870 . Shall we see his throne more firmly established than ever ? Shall we see the country free and self-governing ?—the people contented and loyal ? Shall we see France like unto England as regards liberty , with a Constitutional Sovereign in Napoleon arid the promise of a firmly established dynasty in his son ? Shall we see France governed by the intellect of the many in lieu of the grand tact ( now weakened by age and anxiety ) of the Sovereign ? Or perhaps the picture may dissolve into this . A man returning from the first steps taken on a perilous journey , undoing a believed mistake . We may see Napoleon destroying his own handiwork . In 1869 he tried to give his people a free government ; in 1870 he may possibly find his people unprepared to receive so great a boon . Or , again , the picture may be on this wise . The people may have risen upon their ruler , and have made him their slave . It has been done before in France , and the odds are fearfully in favour of the multitude . On one side there are numbers , and wealth , and good births , and genius ; on the other , there is only the intellect : of an old man !
Which of the three pictures shall we see ? The first is our choice ; for Napoleon , with all his faults , has been a good friend I to England , and we wish him well with all the heartiness of a British nature . Which shall we see ? Time can only show . Then the Genius of the Hour selects another slide , marked 1869 and the world become ¦ Si s dark and dismal . We have the interior , of an infirmary , but such an infirmary ! The poor sick are huddled together in an unseemly crowd ; the room reeks with a nauseous odour ; the beds are overrun with vermin . Death reigns supreme , while the Guardians of the poor quarrel and abuse one another in the choicest Billingsgate . Time takes the slide Into , and a new it beg re ins ime to of dissolve cleanliness —into and what comfort ? ? A reime with g g new Guardians and new management ? With Guardians who prefer to seek the welfare of the poor rather than to insult one another—Guardians who will look after their charges , instead of , quarrelling with their subordinates ? Or will the picture become more horrible than ever ? Will mismanagement grow apace ? Will bad become worse ? Will Death take up his abode in the place , and consequently give up his flying visits ? Will the paupers ' graves grow in number , and the inquests be counted by hundreds instead of tens ? Which of the two pictures shall we see ? Time alone can show . Then another slide is slioped into the lantern , and a hideous street appears on the white disc . A street which disfigures the beauties of the City , with its new street and its glorious bridges . A street that has been condemned over and over again , —that has been written at , and argued about , for weeks , months , years , and proved to be useless and expensive , and emphatically bad , and yet which remains at this moment in its native hideousness ! Shall we see it dissolve into a broad thoroughfare , with noble shops and contented citizens ? Shall we be able to look upon it with pride and admiration , or will it remain as a disgrace and a shame to the City of London ? Shall we have a street capable of containing any amount of traffic , or will the list of accidents grow longer , and the time of business men be wasted as if it were as useless as dust , as valueless as pump-water ? "Which of the two pictures shall we see ? Time alone can show . We have a slide still marked 1869 , and showing the picture of a brutal demon more beast than man—more devil than either . Will this' portrait ( it has been drawn in Ireland ) dissolve into the representation of a happy landowner , with meat in his larder , crops in his fields , and money in his pocket ? Will patriotism take the place of Fenianism ? Will the thirst for bloodshed give way to that sweetest of loves—the love of country ? Once more , and finally—time alone can show .
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Citation
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Tomahawk (1867-1870), Jan. 15, 1870, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/t/issues/ttw_15011870/page/3/
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