"Good God, you'll be hissed off the hustings!--Read from the paper, do
you hear!" he added, almost gnashing his teeth.
Matters having come to this fearful issue, "Gentlemen," commenced Mr.
Titmouse, faintly----
"Hear him! Hear, hear!--Hush!--Sh! sh!" cried the impatient and
expectant crowd.
Now, I happen to have a short-hand writer's notes of every word uttered
by Mr. Titmouse, together with an account of the reception it met with:
and I shall here give the reader, first, Mr. Titmouse's _real_, and
secondly, Mr. Titmouse's _supposed_ speech, as it appeared two days
afterwards in the columns of the _Yorkshire Stingo_.
"Look on _this_ picture----and on THIS!"
Mr. Titmouse's ACTUAL Speech.
"GENTLEMEN,--Most uncommon, unaccustomed as I am,
(_cheers_)--happy--memorable,--proudest--high honor--unworthy,
(_cheering_)--day of my life--important crisis, (_cheers_)--day gone
by, and arrived--too late, (_cheering_)--civil and religions liberty
all over the world, (_immense cheering, led off by Mr. Mudflint._)
Yes, gentlemen,--I would observe--it is unnecessary to say--passing
of that truly glorious Bill--charter--no mistake--Britons never
shall be slaves, (_enthusiastic cheers._)--Gentlemen, would be ruin
to go back, while to stand still was impossible, (_cheers;_) and,
therefore, there was nothing for it but to go forward, (_great
cheering_). He looked upon the passing of the Bill for giving
Everybody Everything, as establishing an entirely new order of
things, (_cheers._) in which the people had been roused to a sense
of their being the only legitimate source of power, (_cheering._)
They had, like Samson, though weakened by the cruelty and torture of
his tyrants, bowed down and broken into pieces the gloomy fabric of
aristocracy. The words 'Civil and Religious Liberty' were now no
longer a by-word and a reproach, (_cheers;_) but, as had been finely
observed by the gentleman who had so eloquently proposed him to
their notice, the glorious truth had gone forth to the ends of the
earth, that no man was under any responsibility for his opinions or
his belief, any more than for the shape of his nose, (_universal
cheering._) A spirit of tolerance, amelioration, and renovation, was
now abroad, actively engaged in repairing our defective and
dilapidated constitution, the relic of a barbarous age--with some
traces of modern duty, but more of Church Establishment to
a--difference between me and my honorable opponent, (_loud cheers
and groans,_) I live among you, (_cheers_)--spend my money in the
borough, (_cheers_)--no business to come here, ('_No, no!_')--right
about, close borough, (_hisses!_)--patient attention, which I will
not further trespass upon, (_'hear! hear!' and loud
cheering,_)--full explanation--rush early to the--base, bloody, and
brutal (_cheers_)--poll triumphant--extinguish forever,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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