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THE TOMAHAWK. A SATURDAY JOURNAL OF SATI...
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No. 159] LONDON, MAY 21, 1870. , [Price ...
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THE "HALF WORLD" OF LONDON
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The time has arrived for some one to " s...
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 . Cintefc hv frxtfyux W ^^ MI ^ W—A ^ HMM ^ M ^ & 1 $ tckztt + . ¦ :, . "INVITAT CULPAM QUI PE € CATUM PRETERIT . "
No. 159] London, May 21, 1870. , [Price ...
No . 159 ] LONDON , MAY 21 , 1870 . , [ Price Twopence .
The "Half World" Of London
THE " HALF WORLD" OF LONDON
The Time Has Arrived For Some One To " S...
The time has arrived for some one to " speak out , " not in the smoking room or boudoirnot with a half-drunken chuckle , or a quite prurient giggle . That is not the sort of " speaking out" that is required—that vue want . The " speaking out" that brings dishonour to man and disgrace to women will not do for us . Fitz-Faddle , with his scandalous stories , is a ruffian for all his white waistcoat and velvet-collared , brass-buttoned , rose beflowered tail coat ; and Lady Lydia Balmarino , with her French dotible entendres , is a wanton , in spite of her diamonds , of her well-salaried maid , and her much-bullied , all-enduring and hopelessly desponding " companion" and slave . No , we want the "speaking out" of the journalist—if you will the preacher . The Pall Mall Gazette in the full-blown pride of large pages , and a small circulation , abused us some months since for aspiring to the pulpit . For all that , we shall not be turned from j doing what we consider to be right—yes , verily— in spite of the Pall MalPs braying , braying—quite so—rumour has it that braying is the nearest approach to paying that the Pall Mall can accomplish . Unhappy Pall Mall—happy public ! To ! return a club , , we a club shall . certainl ¦ y call a spade a spade , and ( as a change }
To commence then , the inhabitants of the " half world" of London are on the increase . That horror of vice , that dread of the unseemly which was wont to characterise our mothers and grandmothers has passed away . Now it is the thing to taljk about "improper" persons , read "fast" novels , and witness disgusting plays . The innate brutality of the English people which has secured for them as a representative creation that revolting monster J ohn Bullhas made their vice coarse and vulgar . In France , there is , something refined about sin . A halo of sentimentality shines round the head of the breaker of the seventh commandment , and the faithless wife has always an air about her of dying pathetically to slowsoftand solemn music . But in England adultery is simply and , purel , y adultery . H means so much to lawyers and so much to petitioners . The wages of sin are not death , but only damages . In France the dis covery of a little liaison between cotisin and cousi ? ie tisually leads lonely to spot an near encounter the frontier in the . grey In Eng dawn land of such the morning an affair has some no more significance than a barrister ' s brief . The injured husband ] intervenes cooll y appears ( which before is often a jury the , and case Unless ) secure the s his Queen verdict ' s Proctor and 1 Pay bankers s the damages To tell the thus obtained th , divorc into e has the become private account so common at , his in
England that we shall not be at all surprised at finding some one some day getting up " in his place " in the House and asking the Secretary of State presiding at the Home Office if he sees any reason why the laws affecting adultery should not be struck out of the statute-book— " they having fallen into disuse . " To go to the fountain head of this foul stream , the real reason why so much vice exists in London is to be found in the tolerant tone adopted towards the demi mo fide . We will leave out of the question for the moment the conduct of our women . After all" said and done the wives and daughters of men are what the husbands and fathers make them . If a creature Cwe can ' t call him a man ) is such a miserable nincompoop that he is unable to keep his wife in proper subjection , he deserves his fate—a wretched one . If women are allowed to fill their photograph albums with cartes de visite of prostitutes , and their bookshelves with novels adapted coarsely from the French , it is the fault of those nearest and dearest to them . We repeat then , that we will leave out of the question the conduct of our women , and will confine our attention to our men , and it is not an uneasy thing to prove that in our men ' s thoughtless behaviour is to be found the key to the looseness of the age we live in . In London there are a number of most excellent fellows , who , in spite of their amiability , are thoroughly pernicious . They
are generous , and perhaps , clever , aufonde gentlemen in every sense of the word , and yet they spend their short lives in committing a series of mistakes ending in incalculable harm . Their errors may be summed up in one word—" toleration . " They are too good-natured , too free , too easy . It is a bore to be exighant , so they smile upon vice because they haven't sufficient energy to conjure up a frown 1 We will admit that these men are thoroughly good fellows , quick to resent an insult , ready to shield their womankind from the very shadow of vice , eager ( in their languid way ) to do their duty as Christians . And yet these men are the applauders and upholders of wickedness—the reason for the being of the de ? nz monde . Simply because they prefer the wavering word " tolerate " to the curt syllable " cut . " They will consent out of pure sloth to know blackguards because it is too great a bore to give them the cold shoulder . How many men are there not in London who are hopelessly irrevocably out of society through their own misdeeds ? Men who once holding their own have been cJiassdd from drawingrooms and turned out of clubs . Men who arc shunned in the streets by those who were once their intimatesand dare not will show still their be faces permitted in their to ru ancient b shoul haunts der to . shou And lder , yet with these thos men e
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Citation
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Tomahawk (1867-1870), May 21, 1870, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/t/issues/ttw_21051870/page/3/
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