OR, HOW FAR WILL IT GO?
(Being a Forecast of the spread of the Strike Fever, from a Next Week's Diary.)
Wednesday.—All the Police, having now been replaced by Amateur Special Constables, who are as yet unfamiliar with their duties, the position of the Metropolitan Magistrates becomes impossible, and they resign in a body at five minutes' notice, causing the greatest consternation in signalling their resignation by sending every case on the charge-sheet that morning for trial to a superior Court.
Thursday.—The Judges, overwhelmed by the prospect of an unusual and quite impossible amount of extra work, demand the increase of their salaries to £10,000 per annum. On this being categorically refused by the Treasury, they then and there, on their respective Benches, severally tear off their wigs and robes, and quit their Courts "for good," with threatening gestures.
Friday.—The LORD CHANCELLOR, on being informed of the conduct of the Judges, rips open the Woolsack, scattering its contents over the floor of the House of Lords, and, denouncing the Government, throws up his post on the spot. The legal business of the country, coming thus to a deadlock, is involved in further chaos by a sudden strike of all the Members of both the Senior and Junior Bars, which is further complicated by another of every Solicitor in the three kingdoms.
Saturday.—Gatling guns being posted in the Entrance Hall, and Bow Street having been cleared by a preliminary discharge of artillery, the programme of the Royal Italian Opera for the evening is carried out, as advertised, at Covent Garden. Ladies wearing their diamonds, are conveyed to the theatre in Police Vans, surrounded by detachments of the Household Cavalry, and gentlemen's evening dress is supplemented by a six-chambered revolver, an iron-cased umbrella, a head protector, and a double-edged cut-and-thrusting broad-sword.
Sunday.—The Church having caught the prevailing fever, the entire body of the Clergy, headed by the Bishops, come out on strike, with the result that no morning, afternoon, or evening services are held anywhere. The Medical Profession takes up the idea, and, discovering a grievance, the Royal College of Surgeons issues a manifesto. All the hospitals turn out their patients, and medical men universally drop all their cases. An M.D. who is known, upon urgent pressure, to have made an official visit, is chased up and down Harley Street by a mob of his infuriated brother practitioners, and is finally nearly lynched on a lamp-post in Cavendish Square. The day closes in with a serious riot in Hyde Park, caused by the meeting of the conflicting elements of Society, who have all marched there with their bands and banners to air their respective grievances.
Monday.—The London County Council, School Board, Common Council, Court of Aldermen, and the Royal Academicians after discovering, respectively, some trifling sources of dissatisfaction, wreck their several establishments, and finally march along the Thames Embankment towards Westminster, singing, alternately, the "Marseillaise" and "Ask a Pleece-man."
Tuesday.—The House of Commons, after tossing the SPEAKER in his own gown, declare the Constitution extinct, and, abolishing the House of Lords and giving all the Foreign Ambassadors twelve hours notice to quit the country, announce their own dissolution, and immediately commence their Autumn Holiday.
Wednesday.—Railway Directors, Sweeps, Chairmen of Public Companies, Coal-Heavers, Provincial Mayors, Dentists, Travelling Circus Proprietors, Fish Contractors, Beadles, Cabinet Ministers, Street Scavengers, Dog Fanciers, Archbishops, Gas Fitters, Hereditary Legislators, Prize Fighters, Poor-Law Guardians, Lion Tamers, Green-Grocers, and many other discontented members of the community, having all joined in a universal strike, society, becomes totally disorganised, and the entire country quietly but, effectually collapses, and disappears from the European system.