Election 1894: Doubt Street Endorsements

Fallen London
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With the mayoral campaign season upon us and the election near, it is high time for the presses of Doubt Street to fire up and the periodicals of the Fifth City to do their proper job – instructing the populace on what they should think and how they should vote.

So let us, the editorial staff of &quotThe Scarab&quot (shining light on the shadows of the Neath since 1893), be first to the post.

While the Contrarian is certainly a pleasant enough fellow, we find him to be a man with a plethora of words and a paucity of deeds. As the dark cloud known as &quotSeeking&quot threatens to rob London society of some of her finest pillars, we believe we need a mayor of action, not one who will spend his term roaming Veilgarden parties with his charming, but ineffectual ponderings.

As for the Bishop, though none can doubt his skills as an orator (or a wrestler), it is well known his loathing of the devils goes far beyond ecclesiastical necessity. These strange times call out for unity, not division! Do we really need a mayor who would build a proverbial wall around the Brass Embassy? Surely there would be Hell to pay for it.

As such we, the editorial staff of &quotThe Scarab&quot, endorse Jenny to be the next executive of our fair city. No one may doubt that she is a woman of the people. In fact, It is said that politics is the world’s second oldest profession, and so, on the occupational front, she may regarded as doubly traditional. We hope you, our fine and honest readers, will join us in this support.

Vote early! Vote often! And may fortune favour the bold!

Vitamancy - owner and editor-in-chief of &quotThe Scarab&quot.
edited by vitamancy on 6/28/2016
edited by vitamancy on 6/28/2016

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The Flowerdene Underground


I’d like to remind everyone that we must exercise our right to vote while we still have it. It might seem like a small thing, but it carries with it the power to really shake things up. Voting for someone that Flowerdene finds distasteful is better than not voting at all. As a side note, please stop petitioning Caretaker Lowe to run for mayor, he has been vehement in his refusal.


While the Jovial Contrarian has stood as a divisive figure since he announced his campaign, none of us knew him from his previous campaigns, which notably included annoying the living taff out of everyone at the parties he was invited to. Flowerdene has nothing against annoying politicians just because they’re annoying (and they are), but many of us remain skeptical of his ability to choose policies that will accord even with his own standards, let alone the standards of Greater, Lesser and Central Spite.


The Bishop of Southwark has long made a point of making sure everyone knows how much he hates devils. He’s not wrong to hate devils anymore than he’s wrong to wear a stupid hat and have very loud, one-sided conversations all day. Flowerdene has long made it’s stance towards Hell and it’s Infernal Agents clear when we seized control of The Soul Trade and imposed massive restrictions upon spirifage. Flowerdene has also made it clear that it frequently works together with Devils to ensure the safety of Spite’s citizens and the stability of our economy. The Bishop claims to want war with Hell and there are fewer things that could be so damaging, not only to Spite, but to London as a whole.


Sinning Jenny has always been a source of sorrow and happiness in equal measure for many of us. Whether we love her, hate her, love to hate her or hate to love her, she has been a pillar of a slightly more seedy community for many years. She has been keeping her cards close to her chest up until now, but the implications of having her as mayor are staggering. Most notably, it is rumored that she has a mad-eye with Mr Veils. Which, dear readers, I think is hilarious.
[i]

[/i]
Written by The Mole, your slightly full of himself Editor in Chief.
Edited by The Mole, because p-ss off, I know how to check my own spelling, you aren’t my mother.
edited by The Absurd Rogue on 6/28/2016
edited by The Absurd Rogue on 6/28/2016

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An angry, short editorial letter arrives at the offices of The Flowerdene Underground:
[i] Dear Mole,
Mr. Reginald’s hat is not stupid, and in fact his mitre appears to me admirably made of riveted metal. One must admire a man so paranoid as to make his hat of office an Iron Hat.
Yours truly,
Bertrand L. Poole[i]

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“Because everyone knows that the worst place to be shot is in the hat.” The Mole snickers, saving the letter with the personal comment attached for the next issue. “Ahh. That’s prime material right there…”

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A second reply arrives on the doorstep after publication. It appears to bear no stamps or postal marks, as if hand delivered by an indignant author.

[b][i] Dear Mole,

I challenge you to list out 10 total anti-qualifications and/or faults for secular or religious leadership from both heads of London’s Anglican dioceses combined.
I await your surrender,
Bertrand L. Poole
[b][/i]

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A letter in The Muck Of The Neath reads as follows:

“The Bishop has the right idea. DOWN WITH THE DEVILS! BEGIN THE INVASION OF HELL! FOR GOD, SOULS AND COUNTRY!”

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A barely-legible note written beneath the top of The Daily P______'s first page reads as such:

Our publication has decided to make no official endorsements with regard to the upcoming mayoral election. However, our editor-in-chief wishes for it to be known that the only candidate on which a vote is not utterly wasted would be Sinning Jenny, and furthermore advises all readers of this publication who vote otherwise to burn this paper and never again purchase it as you are, to use his words directly, &quotwalking, breathing refuse.&quot

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The Winding Sheet continues its tradition of presenting editorials in the form of obituaries and near obituaries, submitted anonymously.

One such essay and related obituaries may catch your eye, if you are scanning for potentially politically related commentary, and wish to read it.

Does the heart of faith still beat?

[spoiler] Is this the week we shall declare faith dead? No, not the faith of all hearts in the Neath.

But, to those admirable persons who have nourished such feeling, and kept it here, in this darkest of places – bravo to you! And consider what your faith might tell you in this time of election, and consider carefully what yet lives in the heart of any who would claim your vote because of their religion.

(To those cynical enough to already find it dead in themselves, this warning is not for you, but the knowledge in it is shared to you equally.)

A man of the church puts himself forward. A man who seeks to make war on the church’s behalf. What do we know of him?

Reliable sources implicate him in a recent act of terrorism. It is rumored – though it cannot be proven to the satisfaction of the constables, being dependent solely on word of mouth testimony - that he supplied a weapon designed to provoke great harm, to be released in a place that while it houses those who are enemies of the church is also a dwelling place of many of our friends and neighbors. A place which on any given day has inside it a mix of those guilty and innocent, as all places here.

Is that the war faith pursues?

Remember Proverbs 6:16-19. ‘These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.’

Who, of our candidates, is guilty of plotting to shed innocent blood? Of conceiving a plot – a wicked imagining – that caused mischief and required deception. Who is yet proud of it?

And, am I, penning this letter, the false witness, or is he?



[ooc: In any version of the Neath where the bomb did go off, here follows a list of genuine obituaries for those who perished. People doing their jobs. Making business deals. Visiting friends in their homes. In any version of the Neath where the bomb did not go off, there follows a set of clearly fictional obituaries, describing very similar but not specific sorts of people.]
[/spoiler]
edited by Appolonia on 6/28/2016
edited by Appolonia on 6/28/2016

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While it is well known that the editorial board of The Fateful Star endorses the bishop, it has been unable to come up with an editorial quite fawning enough for its tastes. The last meeting of these distinguished journalists examined several proposed articles before perpetual rounds of toasts to the Bishop’s impending election devolved into carousing and mayhem, including laying their hands on passersby and forcing gin down their throats until they fainted under this unrelenting and unsolicited merriment.

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The Scandalous Edition of the Avalon Oracle runs with this as it’s front page:
THE THREE CANDIDATES RUNNING FOR MAYOR ARE TIED IN MORE THEN COMPETITION, THEY ARE TIED IN LOVE!
Due to hard work of our investigative journalists, we have determined that the three candidates have no real interest in the throne of Mayor of London. In face, their election is pursuit of a different goal - the heart of a single individual! An individual who made a public vow to only give her heart to the Mayor of London! And just who is this individual? One of the Costermongers that sells ribbons to us good citizens. What makes her so valuable to these powerful men and and women? Read more to find out!

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As soon as the three candidates are annouced and the campaign starts to get steam, London’s Science Variety Magazine proudly publishes a number dedicated to weasels and the main article datails the biology and challenges for survival of the half-weasels (the ones that come out of bifurcated owls).

It may or may not be a coincidence.

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[i]Postscript: I await your listing of any specific failings of either of London’s Anglican bishops with bided breath.[/i]