And (in effigy, out of consideration for Saxon prejudices)
Shooting the Landlord.
There will also be a general run of excisemen and tax-gatherers for their lives. Prizes will be awarded, which the losers will be at liberty to contest with the conquerors after their distribution.
On Easter Monday, Greenwich Fair will offer its attractions to an intellectual British public. A great falling off will be observed in this time-honoured festival. The shows will be found stripped of their brightest pantomimic and melodramatic ornaments: but Richardson will not give up the ghost!
Parliamentary business will be suspended for the Easter vacation. Much curiosity exists as to what statesmen do with themselves on such occasions. A slender middle-aged gentleman, of Jewish aspect, with an immense quantity of glossy ringlets, will be seen enjoying three sticks a-penny in the park on Easter Monday. A much shorter gentleman, wearing a pasteboard nose, and blowing a penny trumpet, will be robbed of his handkerchief, in the same locality, whilst getting into a round-about, in company with an elderly gentleman in plaid inexpressibles and a retroussé nose. That handkerchief will be found marked J. R. with a coronet. For once, we decline being definite, and say nothing.
Capital First of April Joke. Emigration Agents persuade intending Emigrant that they are showing him the way to Australia.
APRIL.
The excellent working of the convict system will be summarily displayed in Australia. The convicts, by a decisive coup, will succeed in obtaining the upper hand. The colonial executive will be vanquished and replaced by a provisional government on an entirely new principle. A new and original code of laws will be organized, by which honesty will be made criminal, and rascality rewarded. No man will be allowed to claim any property, unless he can prove that he has stolen it, and no documents whatever will be considered binding except forgeries. The Gold Fields will be at the disposal of the government, who will grant licenses (to be paid for in counterfeit coin) for the assassination and plunder of the individuals who have been sent out (officially) to rob the diggers.
Emigration will, however, continue unchecked. Labour will be at an incredible premium. £400 a year will be refused by a groom, because he is expected to attend to the stable, and refused the use of the piano. Desertion in the army will be carried to such an extent that Lord Hardinge himself will be compelled to mount guard at Folkstone, to keep out the French invasion—his only hope of the safety of the country being derived from the knowledge that all the soldiers of the Emperor Napoleon III. have deserted too, and that that potentate is constitutionally opposed to the ordeal of single combat. There will be no policemen left. The magistrates themselves will be compelled to assume the uniform in case of any malefactors remaining in the country. Mr. Norton's beat will be Westminster Bridge; that of Mr. Broderip, Vauxhall Road and its environs; whilst the safe custody of the Borough will be entrusted to the vigilance of Mr. A'Beckett.