whit way he is so powerful. His slaves tell him so much that he knows
everything. Look fhat with an entire lack of consistency he said about
the _Salpinx_. Could he have said that if he hadna been informed? No,
I repeat, a thousand times no. Comrades we maun do the same. He knows
our secrets and uses them against us most unfair. We maun worm his
out too, and use them to bend his proud knee to the people's will.
Comrades, I, me, know his secrets. I am the man and Mrs. Crowe is the
woman fhat shall shame him before all his silken harems and cardinals
and potentates--upset his apple-cart if I may use a colloquious
impression. We only have got to show the despot our two faces, and
I'll let ye know he'll quail as sure's death. We shan't need say a
word. At the mere sight of me and my lady-friend the monster'll howl
for mercy. Then we will be able to have our revenge for his recent
most insulting remarks. We will dictate fhat he shall have to do to
win our favour. All the starch and haughtiness shall go out of him
like steam out of a toddy-jug when he sees us two; and he shall pay
any price to gain our smile. And then I'll let you know what my plans
are. Comrades, we're agreed aren't we that the only way in which the
Cause can triumph over Capital is by having a Labor majority in the
House of Commons. Fhat I mean by that is this. At that magnificent
demonstration of Labor's irresistible electoral might, in the words
of the _Salpinx_, we can make the Tories and our friends the Liberals
pass our bills to pay us our proper salaries; and we will wrestle from
the reluctant rich the mines and the railways and the mills and all
the paying industries, and we shall even nationalize the land itself
which our bloated aristocracy have robbed us of and mafficked in and
wallowed in our gore. Comrades, I shall not detain you much longer for
I see the hour is getting on. Fhat I mean to say is this is the point.
There are, in this Great Britain and Ireland of ours the night, no less
than 8,452,637 deluded papists with parliamentary votes. I obtained
those figures carefully from statistics. You have to be careful about
details like this if you mean to do yersel' any good at a'. Now,
Comrades, all those 8,452,637 papists shall gladly drop their 8,452,637
votes into candidates' ballot boxes which will be put forward by the
Liblab Fellowship. They shall do it at one word from their Pope, at one
penstroke of his, such is the besotted state of slavery in which they
exist. Refuse they dare not, or they should languish in the horrors
of the Spanish Inquisition or light the Fires of Smithfield and the
Massacres of the so-called Saint Bartholomew. Comrades, it is that one
word and penstroke which the sight of me and Mrs. Crowe shall squeeze
out of their haughty Pope. We'd better have a proper deputation to go
to wait on him with us for safety's sake; and happen we'd better have
a sort of address to present, explaining how matters stand, just to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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