(BEING A FORECAST OF THE SPREAD OF THE STRIKE FEVER, FROM A NEXT
WEEK'S DIARY.)
_Wednesday_.--All the Police, having now been replaced by Amateur
Special Constables, who are as yet unfamiliar with their duties, the
position of the Metropolitan Magistrates becomes impossible, and
they resign in a body at five minutes' notice, causing the greatest
consternation in signalling their resignation by sending every case
on the charge-sheet that morning for trial to a superior Court.
_Thursday_.--The Judges, overwhelmed by the prospect of an unusual and
quite impossible amount of extra work, demand the increase of their
salaries to £10,000 per annum. On this being categorically refused
by the Treasury, they then and there, on their respective Benches,
severally tear off their wigs and robes, and quit their Courts "for
good," with threatening gestures.
_Friday_.--The LORD CHANCELLOR, on being informed of the conduct of
the Judges, rips open the Woolsack, scattering its contents over the
floor of the House of Lords, and, denouncing the Government, throws up
his post on the spot. The legal business of the country, coming thus
to a deadlock, is involved in further chaos by a sudden strike of
all the Members of both the Senior and Junior Bars, which is further
complicated by another of every Solicitor in the three kingdoms.
_Saturday_.--Gatling guns being posted in the Entrance Hall, and Bow
Street having been cleared by a preliminary discharge of artillery,
the programme of the Royal Italian Opera for the evening is carried
out, as advertised, at Covent Garden. Ladies wearing their diamonds,
are conveyed to the theatre in Police Vans, surrounded by detachments
of the Household Cavalry, and gentlemen's evening dress is
supplemented by a six-chambered revolver, an iron-cased umbrella, a
head protector, and a double-edged cut-and-thrusting broad-sword.
_Sunday_.--The Church having caught the prevailing fever, the entire
body of the Clergy, headed by the Bishops, come out on strike, with
the result that no morning, afternoon, or evening services are held
anywhere. The Medical Profession takes up the idea, and, discovering
a grievance, the Royal College of Surgeons issues a manifesto. All the
hospitals turn out their patients, and medical men universally drop
all their cases. An M.D. who is known, upon urgent pressure, to have
made an official visit, is chased up and down Harley Street by a mob
of his infuriated brother practitioners, and is finally nearly lynched
on a lamp-post in Cavendish Square. The day closes in with a serious
riot in Hyde Park, caused by the meeting of the conflicting elements
of Society, who have all marched there with their bands and banners to
air their respective grievances.
_Monday_.--The London County Council, School Board, Common Council,
Court of Aldermen, and the Royal Academicians after discovering,
respectively, some trifling sources of dissatisfaction, wreck their
several establishments, and finally march along the Thames Embankment
towards Westminster, singing, alternately, the "_Marseillaise_" and
"_Ask a Pleece-man._"
_Tuesday_.--The House of Commons, after tossing the SPEAKER in his own
gown, declare the Constitution extinct, and, abolishing the House of
Lords and giving all the Foreign Ambassadors twelve hours notice to
quit the country, announce their own dissolution, and immediately
commence their Autumn Holiday.
_Wednesday_.--Railway Directors, Sweeps, Chairmen of Public Companies,
Coal-Heavers, Provincial Mayors, Dentists, Travelling Circus
Proprietors, Fish Contractors, Beadles, Cabinet Ministers, Street
Scavengers, Dog Fanciers, Archbishops, Gas Fitters, Hereditary
Legislators, Prize Fighters, Poor-Law Guardians, Lion Tamers,
Green-Grocers, and many other discontented members of the community,
having all joined in a universal strike, society, becomes totally
disorganised, and the entire country quietly but, effectually
collapses, and disappears from the European system.
* * * * *