The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 7: MiscellaneousWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 7: Miscellaneous
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
"The unmitigated blackguards and miserable spalpeens who
raised the standard of revolt against the brave and gallant
O'Mahony are knocked into the most infinitesimal
smithereens, and chawed up until there is not as much left
of them as remained after the tooth-and-nail conflict of the
Kilkenny cats. The blessed and holy St Patrick (may the
heavens be his bed in glory!) never more thoroughly
extinguished the toads, snakes, bedbugs, mosquitoes, and
varmint in general, which he drove out of Ould Ireland, than
O'Mahony, the gallant Head Centre, squelched, exterminated,
crushed out, and extinguished the cantankerous Senators and
rebellious disciples of the brotherhood who thought to
clutch the evergreen laurels and verdant greenbacks with
which a patriotic and confiding people have encircled his
brow and lined his wallet. As the blessed St Patrick afore
said compelled the varmints to betake themselves to the
swamps and morasses, and `chased the frogs into the bogs,'
so the redoubtable 0'Mahony has compelled the rebellious
Fenians to hide their diminished heads and betake themselves
to the recesses of oblivion, where their contortions will be
watched by the observer of futurity, as the visitors of
Blarney Castle are edified by the gambols of the 'comely
eels in the verdant mud.' The brave 0'Mahony has come forth
from the contest like gold from the crucible, or whisky from
the still, purified, etherealised, and elevated, while his
antagonists have shrunk away like dross or swill, never more
to mingle with the Olympian deliberation, and Jove-like
councils of the Moffatt Mansion. Instead of participating
in these august deliberations, they will go back to their
shanties, and there behold the glories they are unworthy to
share. As if the O'Mahony bludgeon had not knocked the
breath completely out of the revolters, the idolised
Stephens, who, like the Roman Curtius, jumped into the gulf
of Irish nationality, published a letter and a proclamation
which must satisfy the public that the recreants 'kilt
intirely,' and may as well give their neighbours a pleasant
wake and a decent burial as expect to survive the period of
their inevitable dissolution. His proclamation comes down
on them like a shillaly in Donnybrook; and if it does not
ventilate their skulls, it is because those cranial
envelopes are as impervious to physical force as to the
gentle influence of reason or patriotism. Having demolished
the rebellious Senate and their backers, the next thing
0'Mahony has to do is to wipe out the bloody Saxon and
re-establish the nationality of the Emerald Isle as it
existed in the days of Brian Boru. As Queen Victoria is a
woman, we do not expect to see her locked up like Jeff.
Davis, but she will be allowed to emigrate to New York, and
open a boarding-school or a dry-goods store, where she will
remain unmolested as long as she behaves herself."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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