Curiosities of Street Literature

by Unknown

Boy.—Why a Gladstonite to the backbone, and no mistake.

There is a good lad; now let me hear you rehearse the Gladstone or Liberal Belief.

I believe in Bill Gladstone to be the true Champion of Reform, and that he is a perfect game cock, and that he will stick his spurs into the comb of any tory mountebank who shall attempt to set the working-man’s rights and privileges at naught; and I believe at the coming election that all true liberals will put their shoulders to the wheel and obtain a first-rate majority, not only in Church Reform, but in all things where reformation is wanted; and that Gladstone and his friends will reach the tip top of the poll, and start the tories off like scalded cocks, and this I firmly believe. So help me John Brown.

There is a good boy, now let us enlighten our friends on events, past, present, and future.

Now in the first place, there is Gladstone’s Irish Church Question! it is a stickler to many, more especially to Dizzey, the Isrælite, for it is to him like the carpenter’s saw, which the black cook said stuck in his gizzard.

For the Dizzeyites were sorely vexed by a political squib, which was recited by some of the unwashed in Hyde Park, who made a goodly collection, which went into the pockets of the Collectors in the usual manner.

And behold the Dizzeyites and Adullamites were alarmed, and they said who hath done this evil which is so likely to rob our fat shepherds of the golden wash they have so long fed upon.

And Sarah Gamp of the Standard did cause large bills to be posted in every corner, equal in size to the top of a large dining table, headed with these words, “Gladstone and his Friends,” showing how the needle had pricked their tender feelings.

And Dizzey was down on his luck, when he found that his nose was compared to double size, and he hid himself in a corner and wept.

And behold there arose a loud cry from the ladies of England, saying, we are man’s better half, why not let us have a voice in the affairs of our country, and not have our tongues muzzled like D— M— as served our dogs.