D1.8.13: Ideal Representatives

D1.8.13: Ideal Representatives

Newspaper Clippings

Bleek questions the calibre of men elected by the Cape Colony's electorate to legislate on their behalf in parliament (the 'great organism'), as two parliamentary vacancies appear imminent. He contends that true representatives serve constituents ideally by behaving as a pronoun does when referring to the noun they represent (the antecedent). His analogy may also suggest that representatives ought to function as placeholders: undesigning conduits for public concerns, whose 'meaning' (or purpose) is entirely referential. He reminds the public of unpopular Acts of Parliament and representatives who failed to champion their interests. Accordingly, he urges voters to be more discerning and to accept the scarcity (or absence) of virtuous paragons.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

15 December 1864

Two cut-out columns of printed newsprint mounted on foolscap folio (warped). 'Ideal Representatives' is the title Bleek wrote on the mount.

Ideal representatives, Mr Advocate Cole (Alfred Whaley Cole), House of Assembly (a new Cape District member needed), Mr Advocate Denyssen (his probable promotion), by-election (for Cape District House of Assembly seats), great organism (how Bleek refers to parliament)

Pressed clippings of Victorian current affairs opinion pieces by Wilhelm Bleek. Published in Het Volksblad on Thursday, December 15th, 1864. 'Mr Advocate Denyssen' likely refers to Petrus Johannes Denyssen (1811-1883), a Cape Supreme Court judge whose surname is sometimes spelt Denÿssen.

Van de Sandt de Villiers & Co.