The Potteries Examiner : — 1878-02-23 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1278.  THE LION AND THE BEAR,  The long-eared brotherhood, in the persons of navy admirals, commodores, post-captains, ,ke., army generals, colonels, majors, &e.. army and navy contractors, royal navy dockyard and arsenal officials, Whitehall flunkeys, horse guard lackeys, and Government pensioners in general, have been vociferously clamouring for war above a twelvemonth's now, insanely endeavouring to prompt the majestic brute, alias the heavily burthened and frightfully bamboozled taxpayers of Britain's aristocratically misgoverned island, to challenge the Russian Bear to a deadly duel, on the ensanguined arena of hideous and infernal slaughter. That a murderous and desolating conflict has not taken place is purely attributable, more to the forbearance ,-)f the coolheaded and astute turnkey of Poland and Siberia, than to the reflective and prudent considerations of those who have been endeavouring to lead the royal beast in a leash of selfseeking flattery and mercenary humbug. From the topmost to the lowermost twig of the tree, there has evidently been a conspiracy against peace, and a perilous plot of treasonable contrivance against the honour and welfare of the British Commonweath. From the thickets of HugLenden, the reedy coverts of Lincoln, the lairs of feudal spoil and place seeking plunder, the insensate hee-haws of idiotic defiance, and the venal and asinine roars of persistent provocation, have unceasingly bellowed; but hitherto, let us praise a gracious providence, all but in vain. The Lion has been despatched to shake his mane at Besika Bay, and wag his tufted tail at the mouth of the Dardanelles. Cajoled by his priggish parasites, he has been urged to show his teeth in bellicose protocols, and exhibit his royal rage in the newspapers presumed to be inspired by the howling Dervishes of Downing-street, and the Soft as of the various Canservative club-rooms of the kingdom. It has been a contemptible sight for gods and men to behold the poor imitative creature writing itself down an ass, and roaring like any sucking dove, wandering up and down the Sea of Marmora like a thing demented. Has not the Friar Bungay of politics—the sardonic Punchinello of the Carl ton coterie—the chief augur of the college of diplomatic humbug and tomfoolery, been attempting, by every conceivable artifice within his power. to embroil the two gigantic empires in a senseless and monstrous collision. The sage of Hawarden—the People's William—has been infamously bespattered and villainously maligned for his patriotic zeal and humane fervour in striving to keep us out of warlike entanglements and ha'r-brained impolitic adventures. The animal that has kept up such a braying din is but the base counterfeit of the magnanimous British Lion, who stands on the sea-chafed cliffs of old England, to battle to the death against foreign invasion, and who rides on the foam-white billow to defend her colonial interests, from Hong Kong, in the Yellow Sea, to the ice-clad coasts of Nova Zembla. If the Muscovite Bear has at last placed its foot upon the truculent Turkey, and made the infanticides of Bulgaria to bite the dust, why should we interfere to save it from a just retribution? Why should we waste our pity on the perpetrators of cold-blooded butchery, the bestial ravishers of virgin innocence, and the remorseless assassins of the feeble, the helpless, and the aged? When shall we get rid of this incubus of deceit, debasement, and extravagance? What cunning devices and artful stratagems have been clandestinely employed to drift us into gory conflict with the military forces of the Ursuline Empire! And what for? On behalf of the rule of the rapacious Pashas of Constantinople, and virtually in order to continue the body and soul grinding power of the Osmanli bloodhounds over the &fenceless Christian Rayahs of Bosnia and Bulgaria—the original heirs and inhabitants of the soil. Should the Iravening Bear of St. Petersburg ever approach I our frontiers to molest our grand inheritance, whether in Europe or Asia, the Lion King of i Britain will do by him as she did by the Grand Armada of Spain—she will tinge the ocean waves with his caitiff blood, and send him howling to his Gods, exultant over his hapless  temerity, and chanting loud TE DEEMS once more to Him who loves heroism and valour when it is enlisted on the side of the right, and employed in defence of Faith, and Home, and Fatherland.