- Museum number
- 1868,0808.9350
- Title
- Object: The "system" that "works so well"!! - or the boroughmongers grinding machine -
- Description
-
The House of Commons is a great stone building in decay, 'St Stephens', supported on posts formed of dismantled cannon. This is a mill, the motive power being given by a large mill-wheel on the left, the slats inscribed with names of boroughs. From the gable-end of the building under a solitary Gothic window slopes an enclosed shoot or huge rectangular spout inscribed 'Borough-Bridge' [see BM Satires No. 16602], from which a golden stream pours into a brimming vat of 'Public Money'. The long slanting spout is supported on the bayonets of two big muskets. On the flood of coins are labels: 'Church preferment' [twice], 'Pension or Pensions' [five times], 'Places' [four times], 'Livings', 'Living', 'Colonies', 'Civil Offices', 'Contracts', 'Sinecure' [twice], 'Govert Contracts', 'Jobs' [three times], 'Public Works', 'New Pallace Jobs' [cf. BM Satires No. 15667], 'Commission'. The overflow floods a 'Waste Tub'.
"Tax Eaters" are grabbing the papers in the vat, or shovelling coins into a sack, or walking off with big sacks inscribed '£100.000', '£40000' [twice], '£50,000'. A small boy has a "Commission", and an infant grabs at another. A don in cap and gown clutches a "Living". From the greedy crowd rise the words: 'The System works well—"Why should it be altered?!!'; 'We want no Reform—nothing can be better than the present System—why "not let well alone?!!'; 'We are indebted to this System for all the Blessings we enjoy!!!'; 'We must defend, Our Glorious Constitution!!'
In the space under 'St Stephens', beside the cannon-posts, lie the bodies of dying or despairing victims of "the System". The boroughs on the wheel are: 'Appleby', 'Bedwin', 'Callington', 'Corfe Castle', 'Dunwich', 'Eye', 'Fowey', 'Gatton', 'Hedon', 'Looe', 'Midhurst', 'Newport', 'Orford', 'Plymton' [sic], 'Queenborough', 'Romney', 'St Maws', 'Old Sarum', 'Tregony', 'Winchelsea', 'Yarmouth'. 21 March 1831
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1831
- Dimensions
-
Height: 248 millimetres
-
Width: 349 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', XI, 1954)
A bitter satire on the defenders of the borough system, with a list of boroughs from the sixty in Schedule A, to be disfranchised. Boroughs to return one member were in Schedule B. Both, with their "Prevailing Influence", are listed, Molesworth, 'Hist. of England from 1830', 1871, i, pp. 86-90. (Old Sarum accidentally omitted.) The thesis that "The system works well" was derided in Brougham's great speech of 7 October. 'Parl. Deb.', 3rd s. viii. 259 ff. The cannon indicate military power for civil coercion, probably with reference to industrial and agrarian riots, see No. 16400, &c; cf. No. 17073, &c. One of many attacks on pensioners, placemen, &c. The granting of commissions in the Army (acquired by purchase) to boys was not a current issue; it had been raised by Cobbett in 1809, see No. 11281; for the general impulse to reforms cf. No. 16267, &c. For the doomed boroughs see index and Nos. 16612, 16617, 16650, 16675, 16676, 16677, 16690. Cf. No. 16170.
A pencil sketch in reverse is in the V. & A. (CC. 18 A); caption: "Dont have a Reform have a General Fast" (see No. 16612).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1992 Sep-Oct, London, Order of St John Museum, Cruikshank 200
1992 Nov-Dec, Burnley, Townley Hall AG & Museum, Cruikshank 200
1993 Jan-Feb, Maidstone Museum & AG, Cruikshank 200
1993 Feb-April, Sheffield, Graves AG, Cruikshank 200
2001 Mar-Aug, London, Soane Museum, Hogarth's Election Entertainment
2001/2 Oct- Jan, Newcastle, Laing Gallery, Hogarth's Election Entertainment
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.9350
