Life, 1886-11-18 · page 6 of 16
Life — November 18, 1886 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Paddy's Own Parliament" This satirical poem mocks the Irish independence movement by imagining a ridiculous Irish parliament. The verses use ethnic caricature—"Paddy" was a derogatory term for Irish people—to ridicule Irish Home Rule aspirations through absurdist humor. The joke presents an imaginary Irish government as chaotic and incompetent, featuring "a mob, be-gob! old parliament" and "a landlord-husting, rosary-roasting, Orangeman-busting parliament." The satire suggests Irish self-governance would be anarchic and sectarian conflict-ridden, mixing religious (rosary) and political (Orangeman—Protestant unionists) references. The accompanying illustration shows a simple structure, perhaps emphasizing primitiveness. This reflects late-19th/early-20th-century anti-Irish sentiment common in American publications, mocking Home Rule as unworkable.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-LIFE.- A TRIBUTE TO THE SOUTH. T is an excellent idea for the editor of Lzppzncott’. Maga- zine to include in each number a complete novel of about one hundred pages. There is every chance for com- pleteness of design and rapid movement of plot, and yet room for careful finish of detail, which the short story forbids. The first of these novelettes is John Habberton’s “ Brueton’s Bayou.” Itisacharming picture of Southern life on the banks of the Mississippi. Southern goodwill, hospitality, frankness and courtesy receive a tribute from the North which they deserve. In the cold atmosphere of this restless city two very humane and civilizing ideas are gradually dying out—that the family is the true social unit, and that there is a brother- hood among men. Intense selfishness is killing natural courtesy and charity, and there are those who fear that before many years the true American gentleman will be found only in the South. * * * R. HABBERTON has sketched in Velce a most at- tractive girl, full of health and spirits, satisfied with her world, and not bothered with intellectual longings. The picture of physical energy and grace which he has drawn of Velce rowing on the bayou, her cheeks filled with color and her eyes with lustre—the “quick pulsations playing prettily on her graceful, toosely-dressed throat”—is one to make the Boston type of heroine seem a pale and bloodless phantom, The right kind of a man always falls in love with such a girl, and, what is more, he never regrets it, though his knowl- edge may be encyclopedic and her’s fragmentary. * * * Te hearty good fellowship which exists between all members of the Brueton family is one of those Southern characteristics which the North should envy. Brothers and sisters share their joys and sorrows in the South, while in the North they soon learn to conceal both. Most of our boys are least natural in their own homes, and the girls are most attractive to other people’s brothers. The Southern warm-heartedness which Mr. Habberton has pictured is not a story-writer’s idealism, but the real thing. * * * HE bound volume of Harfers Young People, from Nov. 1885 to Nov. 1886, contains more than eight hundred pages of judiciously selected literature for children. Its tone is healthy, wide-awake, buoyant. There is something in nearly every number to lead a child out into the open air, and give him real knowledge of things in nature fully as wonderful as hobgoblins or fairies. The American boy and girl are realists. They don’t take this world on faith as their ancestors did in their childhood. THE PADDY’S OWN PARLIAMENT. An Idol of the Trishtocracy. “The suggestion of a home parliament for Ireland is certainly very pat.” — Mme. de Remusat. ULL soon upon the Irish isle, They'll have the home-made polity, When all the O’s and Macs in style Will rule the native quality. A daddy, piddy parliament. A restive, festive parliament. A big shillaleh, blown-up daily, Whooping-gaily parliament. A high board fence, around the coast They'll build, to keep the English out, With but a gate — or two, at most — For Yankee gold and Papal rout. A braggadocio parliament, A mob, be-gob ! old parliament, A landlord-hustling, rosary-rustling, Orangeman-bustling parliament. And whin the Premier, mortial grand, Essays to speak — Hurroo! Hurroo! The paddy mimbers, passion-fanned, Will raise the divils own to do. A ’baccy, whacky parliament, A whisky, risky parliament, “Oym-wid-yiz-Dinnis !” ‘‘Put-out-Maginnis” in-us !” parliament; Wallace Peck. comicbooks.com