Whatever accidentally happens during the reign of one party, is supposed to have happened either by the despotic order or the dark connivance of the party. If a whale is washed up at the mouth of the Thames during a Tory Government, all the Tory journalists must at once prove that the smell of decaying whale is wholesome and invigorating; while all the Radical journalists must prove that a whale is, in its chemical constitution, rather more poisonous than a viper. Every Conservative writer must think hard of whatever there is to be said in favour of whales: as that they are our own kindred, mammals, reared on the milk of human kindness. The Conservatives must found a Mammals' Club in Piccadilly, to which men and whales shall be equally welcome. On the other hand, the Liberals must think of all they can to the discredit of whales. They must remember the disrespectful treatment of Jonah the Prophet. They must start another club or league- a large popular movement with a banner inscribed, "Justice for Jonah." One party must end up by saying that the sight of the smallest whale on the dimmest horizon makes magnificent sea-captains sicken and fall down dead. The other party must end by maintaining that all furniture should be whale-bone and all food should be whale's blubber. All this happens because the dead whale has chanced to drift shorewards on one tide out of many tides. If it had tossed about for a week or two longer, it might have made all the Tories use the Radical arguments and all the Radicals the Tory ones.
-February 4, 1911, Illustrated London News
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