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T H E T O M A H A W K: A SATURDAY JOURNA...
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No. 89.] LONDON, JANUARY 16, 1869. [Pric...
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THE REAL CURSE OF IRELAND.
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" The agrarian war in Tipperary—Another ...
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.
T H E T O M A H A W K: A Saturday Journa...
T H E T O M A H A W K : A SATURDAY JOURNAL OF SATIRE . " INVITAT CULPAM QUI PECCATUM PRETERIT . "
No. 89.] London, January 16, 1869. [Pric...
No . 89 . ] LONDON , JANUARY 16 , 1869 . [ Price Twopence .
The Real Curse Of Ireland.
THE REAL CURSE OF IRELAND .
" The Agrarian War In Tipperary—Another ...
" The agrarian war in Tipperary—Another landlord shot . " Such are the words in which the Irishman announces the brutal murder of Mr . Baker . The recognised organ of Irish Radicals has no other comment on an act at which every man , who is not degraded to the level of the most savage and cowardly brute beast , shudders with disgust . The men who thus glory in assassination , and who would represent the shooting down of a defenceless man from behind a tree as an act of fair and open warfare , are the poor oppressed creatures to whose just demands England is pledged , in the person of her Prime Minister , to yield complete satisfaction ! What sense of justice , what moral sense at all , can exist in natures to whom the most dastardly outrage seems a noble self-assertion ? Self-assertion in one sense it is , for it is only when one of these murders occurs that we gain an insight into the real degradation of the Irish . This insight is afforded us frequently enough , and for- - cibly enough , to prevent our forgetting the sort of persons with whom we have to deal , when we talk of yielding to the just demands of the Irish peasantry . It is quite time , indeed it seems to us the most proper time 01 tne nation is the 01
an , now , wnen on eve abolishing an undoubted abuse in Ireland , to utter in the strongest language our heartfelt hatred and contempt of those who directly or indirectly defend such crimes as the murder of Mr . Baker . There is something so ineffably repulsive in the attempted association of all that is worst in man with such a holy name as Justice , that any half-hearted expressions of sympathy with the wretches who commit such crimes seem , be to us guilty the . most If we reall ockin y hated blasphe the mies Irish of , or felt ch a towa Christia rds n them can any of that cruel tyranny of which the conventional Angloforth Saxon fervid is always denunciations accused by of Irish English demagogues misrule by , w the e yard might , natt pour er the vanities and vices of the peasantry , glorify their self-indulgence and idleness as noble independence , misname their miseries arrogant and self- crimes conceit and honest galvanise pride , them call u by p th lying e ghosts declamation of past leave into active such honourable agents of still tasks greater to the professed misery and friends crime of . Ireland But we , while to aid we us ask in some those who attempt reall to y love awaken her or into care being for - her among welfare the Irish should people be the that pride righteous of every civilised loathing man for , but such which crimes has which been very destroyed worst in teaching them by . -ages of misconception enforced by the
It is but a very useless exercise of philosophy to speculate on the causes which led to this gradual depravity of moral feeling in the Irish peasant . Those causes have ceased to exist , except in their effects ; it is to the removal of those effects that our energies ought to be directed . The history of the past we cannot alter , any more than , it appears , the Irish can forget ; but as we have learnt from the past at least to correct its errors , and as we have promised for the future a policy of conciliation and justice , we might expect to be met by some attempt , on the part of the people of Ireland , to render the task of reform less difficult by aiding us in the suppression of crimes committed under the pretence of revenge for injuries , of which the memory , but not the suffering , has been inherited . The present generation in Ireland seek an excuse for cowardly assassination in the wrongs suffered by their forefathers ; and this excuse is too often admitted by those , who should be the first to encourage them in striving to gain those advantages by their own industry ? which they now seek by outrage and murder . With what justice to those tenants of Irish land who have by their prudence and frugality improved their tenements , and converted barren bogs into remunerative pastures , can we pass a law which shall confer the privilege of lengthened and undisturbed tenure on tnose who but the
nave never sought to do anything perpetuate desolation which they found , or too often had assisted to create , and who resent any interference with their fancied rights by robbery , violence , and assassination 1 If we wish to pass a land law in Ireland , we must first be sure that agrarian outrages will no longer be sanctioned by the active aid of some , and the tacit acquiescence of all the peasantry . The great mistake which the English Government has committed during the last ten years is in showing a most mischievous mercy to perpetrators of agrarian outrages , and crimes committed under the cloak of patriotism . It is difficult enough them to appreh it is end more these difficult criminals to get at a all jury , and to when condemn you have them caught ; but when both these difficult conditions are fulfilled , the English Government too often yields to the clamour of political agitators , or the persistent twaddle of sham philanthropists , and commutes the capital punishment so justly deserved into some mild penalty utterly inadequate to the offence . This leniency makes the Irish people think that the laws under which the criminals were condemned cannot be just , since we shrink from enforcing the punishments awarded by those laws . If an Irishman beats his wife ' s brains in , the voices of his countrymen are not raised in his defence ; they admit the justice of his execution , and indeed would be angry if it were not carried out . The vicious sympathy which is felt for the assassin of a
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Citation
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Tomahawk (1867-1870), Jan. 16, 1869, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/t/issues/ttw_16011869/page/3/
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