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The Life, Trial, and probable Sentence of the DERBYITES, DIZZYITES, AND
ADULLAMITES, AND THE WHOLE HOST OF TORY CABINET MAKERS,
Who were tried at St. Stephen’s, for conspiring to burke the People’s
Reform, and attempting to pass a Counterfeit Bill instead of a Genuine
Article; thereby imposing upon a certain respectable firm, well-known
as Messrs John Bull and Company. The prosecution was conducted by those
able Advocates for Reform, Bright and Gladstone. The offenders were
undefended, as no one could be found willing to take their cause in
hand on account of their previous bad character.
Now the trial of these Anti-Reformers was highly amusing, owing to the
singular conduct of some of the offenders.
And the proceedings was prefaced by that old-stock farce called the
Struggle for Reform, or John Bull mesmerised.
And the advocates for the people said unto the Derbyites and their
companions, what have you to say in your behalf concerning this fraud
on the working classes of England?
Now behold one of them was a clever mountebank of the tribe of
Dizzyites, and like many of his kind he had a happy knack of saying a
great deal which amounted to nothing; and he commenced his defence with
a mock speech on Reform, which seemed to say: If you Reformers do not
unbutton your eyelids, and expand your understandings, I shall most
certainly mystify you with my high presto, cockalorum jig!
And he had as many tricks as those amusing little marmozettes that are
to be seen in the gardens of the Regent’s Park.
And when he had concluded he turned to the people and said, how do you
like me now?
And there arose a murmur through St. Stephen’s, saying, Not at all, you
are not in our style.
And Dizzy the mountebank was much grieved for he thought he had caused
a great sensation, and he exclaimed, Dizzy, Dizzy, thy occupation’s
gone.
And Lowe the Adullamite, surnamed the moonraker, pleaded guilty to
his offences against the people, and prayed for a mitigation of his
sentence, on the plea that he could not have been in his right mind.
And the poor gentleman could not have been sane for he rambled on with
some nonsense about the mark of Cain being set upon some people’s
brows; and asked the good citizens of London to order mass to be said
for his own sins, or the success of the Bill; his strange manner left
us in a fog to understand which.
Now the chief of the Derbyites being alarmed at the meetings in
Trafalgar Square and throughout England, did call a council in the
privy which layeth in the neighbourhood of Downing Street, to form
plans by which they might overthrow the honest Bright, and all those
who were on the side of the people.
For the Tories, finding that their seats were in a shaky condition, and
being fond of place and pensions, were determined to stick at nothing
rather than give up their golden kitchen stuff of office.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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