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i THE TOMAHAWK. A SATURDAY JOURNAL OF SA...
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No. 147.] LONDON, FEBRUARY 26, 1870. [Pr...
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GOLD WORSHIPPERS,
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Some trades require culture, tact, and i...
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.
I The Tomahawk. A Saturday Journal Of Sa...
i THE TOMAHAWK . A SATURDAY JOURNAL OF SATIRE . € Mtet > fcp & M ^^ i rtt ^^^ A ^ aM ^ MMHI ) UT a'Bscfcett * ( o j " INVITAT CULPAM QUI PECCATUM PRETERIT . "
No. 147.] London, February 26, 1870. [Pr...
No . 147 . ] LONDON , FEBRUARY 26 , 1870 . [ Price Twopence .
Gold Worshippers,
GOLD WORSHIPPERS ,
Some Trades Require Culture, Tact, And I...
Some trades require culture , tact , and imagination . The art of cheese selling is not a difficult one to acquire . And there are many who can dispose of butchers' meat with rapidity and success , but to be an auctioneer one must have the soul of a poet , the tongue of a liar ! Swindles should change into profitable investments , shams into realities at the magic eloquence of the hammerman—even as harlequin ' s bat turns shopfronts into palaces , and omnibuses into coaches made of gold . Oh , it ' s a grand art this science of the auctioneer , and all men are more or less disciples of the craft—all men , great and small , rich and poor , handsome and plain . For instance , see how the proprietors of newspapers hawk their wares . One journal is the " largest in the world , " it is not , and everybody knows it is not , still the fiction tells , and the public are gulled by the startling announcement . Then another declares its circulation to be the " largest in the world . " Why or wherefore only the advertisement agents know . All the magazines are individually more popular , more successful , and more readable than their competitors . Then the theatres , too , put their trust in the auctioneer ' s art . No piece can obtain a run without resorting to a column of startling advertisements in the most conspicuous pasres of the dailv
press . No author is secure of a success without bribing praise and paying for flattery . No actor and actress can obtain a hearing- unless they push , advertise , struggle , and force themselves into the front ranks . Ages ago a man acted for years before he came to town . Acted for years in town before he took a theatre , but now-a-days all this is changed . A man begins as a manager in London , and appears as a star in the provinces—for all that he never quite succeeds in becoming an artist . The London theatre is his auction room , the hoardings I suPply his flowery periods , and printing ink his hammer . A 1 hammer brought down upon wood—the heads of the British I public ! We might ring the changes upon a score of other professions —the advertising barrister who takes briefs for nothing , in order i that he may see his name in print—the parson who starts charities and goes in heavily for penny readings—the doctor who keeps a carriage to wait before his doora footman to attend upon nobody , and a consulting room for , nothing to be done in it . But of all the professions in which the auctioneer ' s h ammer plays a part , that of the match maker is most degrading . M others barter their daughter ' s charms as a ragman sells old bones . A painful fei ^ ht indeed is it to see the smile of approval
with which bejewelled hags and gorgeous harpies view decollete dresses and immodest graces . What matters it to them what becomes of their children ' s souls so long as they can find a fat market for their bodies ? Decrepid diablerie is preferred by them to ingenious youth , rich fools to poor men—nay , Death itself is preferable to Life , so long as Death hides its bones in gold and covers its dart with diamonds ! Go into a modern ball room and listen to the crankling auctioneers , as , covered with rouge and plastered with blanc dc fierle , they sing the poor songs of their daughter ' s virtues . They marry their children to men old enough to be their grandfathers , and wicked enough to dispute the Kingdom of Hell with Pluto himself ! And why is all this done ? Why are newspapers dishonest , and actors untrue to themselves , and mothers a disgrace to their sex ? On account of the great religion of England , the religion that has made us a nation of shopkeepers , a land of cheesemongers ; the religion that is not Protestant , unless it be Protestant to protest against charity ; that is not holy , unless it be holy to live without faith and to die without hope ; is not Catholic , unless it be Catholic to hate one's neighbours as one loves oneself . The mighty religion of England—the worship of Gold ! The Pall Mall Gazettethe other day , cried out upon the , " weeklv satirist " turninsr preacher . Probablv few of our readers
saw the article ( who does see the Pall Mall now that it is the size of a lady ' s train , and as dull as the Coliseum in its worst days ?) on the score that it was bey » nd our province . " Who wants , " exclaimed the moribund giant of Northumberland street , " to be lectured by a cartoon ? " We answer—the whole world . That great world that runs and never reads ; that is the world to be touched by our lessons ; that is the world that even the Pall Mall can never civilize . Why , our fallen contemporary has attempted ' ere now to reform the world himself . Has he not striven to teach us that journalism is only to be approached in white kid gloves , and after a champagne supper ; that his paper is written by gentlemen for gentlemen to read ? In carrying out this idea , he has certainly taken a great deal of trouble . As pleasant food for " gentlemen , " he has published racy articles on " The Wrens of the Curragh , " & c , & c . Of course this has been done on the highest possible grounds of morality . Well , then , if he utters his twopenny shriek , we may surely breathe our equally inexpensive sigh ? It is only common justice I Apologising for our digression , we return to our starting point , the divinity of gold . A hackneyed subject enough , and yet one that never becomes stale . We are on the eve of the London season ; soon waltzing will be the order of the day in Dclgravc
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Citation
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Tomahawk (1867-1870), Feb. 26, 1870, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/t/issues/ttw_26021870/page/3/
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