Mr. Horsman on Wednesday addressed an enthusiastic meet- ing of
his constituents at Liskeard in a very amusing speech. He posed as prophet, and said that he had warned the party that if it yielded to Rome, if it offended the publicans, and if it alienated the Dissenters, the dissolution would produce a Crash. And so, said Mr. Horsman, with the chuckle of a man who was not turned- out, it did. He posed as the virtuous man, de- claring that it was his duty to warn the Government, and not flatter it when it was in power, and then kick it when it was down. He posed as philosopher, asserting that it was a crime to punish a man for his religion when it was a mere geographical accident. If the Quaker Mayor of Liskeard had been born on the Bosphorus he would have been a Mohammedan, if in the Sandwich Islands a cannibal, if a Jew on the throne of Solomon, he would have had 700 wives and then have asked for more. And finally, he posed as English Member very nicely placed in the world, and allowed that "as regarded the country, politically, socially, morally, and com- mercially, it was in every way sound and satisfactory." The general deduction therefore is that a country which by geo- graphical accident is Christian, which is Liberal, and which neglects Mr. Horsman's advice, gets along admirably well.
Previous page
