Broadsides; Chapbooks; Street literature -- Great Britain
To be said by all true Liberals, at all outdoor or indoor Meetings,
at all Committee Rooms, and in front of all Hustings on which the
Gladstonites and the Dizzeyites are to contend for the Managership at
the forthcoming Elections, and to see who is to gain the belt, and
rule the roast at St. Stephen’s. To be said without Barrel Organ or
Grindstone accompaniment.
Now, my boy, as the Great Election is about to take place, and it
becomes us all to sail under true colours, be so good as to tell me
what you are, a Gladstonite, or a Dizzyite?
_Boy._--Why a Gladstonite to the backbone, and no mistake.
There is a good lad; now let me hear you rehearse the Gladstone or
Liberal Belief.
I believe in Bill Gladstone to be the true Champion of Reform, and that
he is a perfect game cock, and that he will stick his spurs into the
comb of any tory mountebank who shall attempt to set the working-man’s
rights and privileges at naught; and I believe at the coming election
that all true liberals will put their shoulders to the wheel and obtain
a first-rate majority, not only in Church Reform, but in all things
where reformation is wanted; and that Gladstone and his friends will
reach the tip top of the poll, and start the tories off like scalded
cocks, and this I firmly believe. So help me John Brown.
There is a good boy, now let us enlighten our friends on events, past,
present, and future.
Now in the first place, there is Gladstone’s Irish Church Question! it
is a stickler to many, more especially to Dizzey, the Isrælite, for it
is to him like the carpenter’s saw, which the black cook said stuck in
his gizzard.
For the Dizzeyites were sorely vexed by a political squib, which
was recited by some of the unwashed in Hyde Park, who made a goodly
collection, which went into the pockets of the Collectors in the usual
manner.
And behold the Dizzeyites and Adullamites were alarmed, and they said
who hath done this evil which is so likely to rob our fat shepherds of
the golden wash they have so long fed upon.
And Sarah Gamp of the Standard did cause large bills to be posted in
every corner, equal in size to the top of a large dining table, headed
with these words, “Gladstone and his Friends,” showing how the needle
had pricked their tender feelings.
And Dizzey was down on his luck, when he found that his nose was
compared to double size, and he hid himself in a corner and wept.
And behold there arose a loud cry from the ladies of England, saying,
we are man’s better half, why not let us have a voice in the affairs of
our country, and not have our tongues muzzled like D-- M-- as served
our dogs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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