The Remarkable History of Sir Thomas Upmore, bart., M.P., formerly known as "Tommy Upmore"Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
General
The Remarkable History of Sir Thomas Upmore, bart., M.P., formerly known as "Tommy Upmore"
Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Fiction; Satire
Nothing can be simpler than to provide, that after a certain date, no
landowner shall be capable of prolonging his unjust tenure, by the
suppeditation of heirs to his estate. No physical means will be taken to
this end. He will still remain in full enjoyment of every British right,
civil, moral, social, and politico-oeconomical. But he must not have
children; or if he dares to do so, the State will take them from him;
and enlist them in the Army, at the usual age of British
soldiers--sixteen. Or if they be girls, they will have a free passage to
the Chiefs guaranteed to be ravaged by the Boers.
The second great measure was the Dust-bin franchise, or--at sufficient
distance from London to ensure intelligence--that of the Dust-pan. A
sanitary, not to say a necessary measure, appealing to every heart and
hearth.
The third, (whose preamble was eloquence itself, to such an extent that
it cannot be cited) enabled the surrender, without consideration, of all
strong places, at present held by Her Majesty's forces, upon foreign
soil, or soil which (without such British occupation) would be foreign
to this realm. Also, of all British ships of war, whether built to pass
over the waves, or beneath them, together with all fittings, and
implements of war, (in proportions to be defined by the schedules
thereafter) to the following Powers; that is to say, France, Russia, and
the Irish Republic, heretofore better known as the Land-League.
The fourth Bill provided for the abolition of every Municipal
Corporation, or other corporate, or incorporate, body of burgesses, or
ancient freemen, making claim to deal with their own affairs, without
licence from the Home Secretary, or the Local Government Board, or the
Railway Station, that might be nearest. Unless such Municipal Body could
show, that they had not been constituted for more than ten years, and
consisted entirely of Liberals.
Short and sweet was the fifth Bill of Government. It had no preamble but
this, "Whereas no Englishman knows how to govern himself," and then it
enacted, that no man should play cards, chess, back-gammon, quoits,
skittles, billiards, bagatelle, or any other game of chance, or skill,
except in the presence of a certified policeman, at a distance of not
less than half a mile from any Licensed Victualler, with no more than
two sterling pence at stake; every such game to be discontinued,
immediately upon the Home-Secretary's yawn, which would be announced
throughout all English counties, by telephonic agency. But in Scotland,
and Wales, and wherever else the Liberal cause was predominant, all
people might play, whenever, wherever, and for whatsoever sum, they
pleased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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