Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890.Various
General
Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890.
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
As a Candidate, moreover, the young M.P. will have discovered that the
triumph of his party depends not merely or even chiefly upon the due
exposition of those political principles with which he may have lately
crammed himself by the aid of a stray volume of MILL, and a _Compendium
of Political History_, but rather upon the careful observance of local
custom and local etiquette, and the ceaseless effort to trump his
adversary's every trick. He will thus have become the President of the
local Glee Club, the Patron of a Scientific Association, and a local Dog
Show, the Vice-President of four Cricket Clubs and of five Football
Clubs, a Member of the Committee of the Hospital Ball, and of the
Society for Improving the breed of Grey Parrots; to say nothing of the
Guild for Promoting the happiness of Middle-aged Housemaids, and the
local Association for the Distribution of Penny Buns, at cheap prices,
to the deserving poor. Moreover, before he has discovered the true
relation of benefit societies to politics, he will find himself a Member
of the Odd Fellows, the Foresters, the Hearts of Oak, the Druids, and
the Loyal and Ancient Order of Free and Accepted Buffaloes, with the
right, conferred by the last-named Society, of being addressed on lodge
nights as if he were a Baronet, or, at least, a Knight.
Having thus met and shaken hands with the working-man during his hours
of festive relaxation, the young M.P. will be properly qualified for
discussing those social questions which form the chief part of every
aspirant's political baggage. Being gifted with a happy power of
enunciating pompous platitudes with an air of profound conviction, and
of spreading butter churned from the speeches of his leaders on the
bread of political economy, he will be highly thought of at meetings of
political leagues of either sex, or of both combined. It is necessary
that he should catch the eye of the Speaker during his first Session. He
will afterwards talk to his Constituents of the forms of the House in
the tone of one who is familiar with mysteries, and is accustomed to
mingle on terms of equality with the great and famous. He will bring in
a Bill which an M.P. who was once young, has abandoned, and, finding his
measure blocked, will discourse with extreme bitterness of the
obstruction by which the efforts of rising political genius are
oppressed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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