I paused in a crowded street,
I only desired to ride--
Only to wait for a Hammersmith 'bus
With room for myself outside;
When I caught the nastiest tune
My ear had ever heard,
And asked the Police to take it away,
But never a man of them stirred.
So the singer still sang on;
She would not, would not go;
She sang a song of the year before last
That struck me as rather low.
She followed with one that was high,
That made the tear-drops start,
That was "_Hi-tiddly-i-ti! Hi!-ti!-hi!_"
The song that broke my heart!
* * * * *
WHAT is A "DEMOGRAPHER"?--Those Londoners who ask this question will
have already obtained a practical answer, as, this week, London
is full of Demographers, to whom _Mr. Punch_, Grand Master of all
Demographers (or "writers for the people"), gives a hearty welcome.
All hail to "The New Demogracy!"
* * * * *
'ARRY ON A 'OUSE-BOAT.
[Illustration]
Dear CHARLIE,--It's 'ot, and no error! Summer on us, at last, with a
bust;
Ninety odd in the shade as I write, I've a 'ed, and a thunderin'
thust.
Can't go on the trot at this tempryture, though I'm on 'oliday
still;
So I'll pull out my _eskrytor_, CHARLIE, and give you a touch of my
quill.
If you find as my fist runs to size, set it down to that quill, dear
old pal;
Correspondents is on to me lately, complains as I write like a gal.
Sixteen words to the page, and slopscrawly, all dashes and blobs.
Well, it's true;
But a quill and big sprawl is the fashion, so wot is a feller to do?
Didn't spot you at 'Enley, old oyster--I did 'ope you'd shove in
your oar.
We 'ad a rare barney, I tell you, although a bit spiled by the pour.
'Ad a invite to 'OPKINS's 'Ouse-boat, prime pitch, and swell party,
yer know,
Pooty girls, first-class lotion, and music. I tell yer we did let
things go.
Who sez 'Enley ain't up to old form, that Society gives it the slip?
Wish you could 'ave seen us--and heard us--old boy, when aboard of
our ship.
Peonies and poppies ain't in it for colour with our little lot,
And with larfter and banjos permiskus we managed to mix it up 'ot.
My blazer was claret and mustard, my "stror" was a rainbow gone
wrong;
I ain't one who's ashamed of his colours, but likes 'em mixed
middlingish strong.
'EMMY 'OPKINS, the fluffy-'aired daughter, a dab at a punt or canoe,
Said I looked like a garden of dahlias, and showed up her neat navy
blue.
Fair mashed on yours truly, Miss EMMY; but that's only jest by the
way,
'ARRY ain't one to brag of _bong four tunes_; but wot I wos wanting
to say
Is about this here "spiling the River" which snarlers set down to our
sort.
Bosh! CHARLIE, extreme Tommy rot! It's these sniffers as want to
spile sport.
Want things all to theirselves, these old jossers, and all on the
strictest Q.T.
Their idea of the Thames being "spiled" by the smallest suggestion of
spree,
Wy it's right down rediklus, old pal, gives a feller the ditherums,
it do.
I mean going for them a rare bat, and I'm game to wire in till all's
blue.
Who are they, these stuckuppy snipsters, as jaw about quiet and peace,
Who would silence the gay "constant-screamer" and line the Thames
banks with perlice;
Who sneer about "'ARRY at 'Enley," and sniff about "cads on the course,"
As though it meant "Satan in Eden"? I'll 'owl at sich oafs till I'm
'oarse!
Scrap o'sandwich-greased paper'll shock 'em, a ginger-beer bottle or
"Bass,"
Wot 'appens to drop 'mong the lilies, or gets chucked aside on the
grass,
Makes 'em gasp like a frog in a frying-pan. Br-r-r-r! Wot old mivvies
they are!
Got nerves like a cobweb, I reckon, a smart Banjo-twang makes 'em jar.
I'm Toffy, you know, and no flies, CHARLIE; swim with the Swells, and
all that,
But I'm blowed if this bunkum don't make me inclined to turn Radical
rat.
"Riparian Rights," too! Oh Scissors! They'd block the Backwaters and
Broads,
Because me and my pals likes a lark! Serve 'em right if old BURNS
busts their 'oards!
Rum blokes, these here Sosherlist spouters! There's DANNEL, the
Dosser, old chap.
As you've 'eard me elude to afore. Fair stone-broker, not wuth 'arf
a rap,--
Knows it's all Cooper's ducks with _him_, CHARLIE; won't run to a pint
o' four 'arf,
And yet he will slate me like sugar, and give me cold beans with his
charf.
[Illustration]
Sez DANNEL--and dash his darned cheek, CHARLIE!--"Monkeys like
you"--meaning _Me_!--
"Give the latter-day Mammon his chance. Your idea of a lark or a spree
Is all Noise, Noodle-Nonsense, and Nastiness! Dives, who wants an
excuse
For exclusiveness, finds it in _you_, you contemptible coarse-cackling
goose!
"Riparian rights? That's the patter of Ahab to Naboth, of course;
But 'tis pickles like you make it plausible, louts such as you give it
force.
You make sweet Thames reaches Gehennas, the fair Norfolk Broads you
befoul;
You--_you_, who'd make Beulah a hell with your blatant Bank Holiday
howl!
"Decent property-owners abhor you; you spread your coarse feasts on
their lawns,
And 'ARRY's a hog when he feeds, and an ugly Yahoo when he yawns;
You litter, and ravage, and cock-sky; you romp like a satyr obscene,
And the noise of you rises to heaven till earth might blush red
through her green.
"You are moneyed, sometimes, and well-tailored; but come you from
Oxford or Bow,
You're a flaring offence when you lounge, and a blundering pest when
you row;
Your 'monkeyings' mar every pageant, your shindyings spoil every sport,
And there isn't an Eden on earth but's destroyed when it's 'ARRY's
resort.
"Then monopolist Mammon may chuckle, Riparian Ahabs rejoice;
There's excuse in your Caliban aspect, your hoarse and ear-torturing
voice,
You pitiful Cockney-born Cloten, you slum-bred Silenus, 'tis you
Spoil the silver-streamed Thames for Pan-lovers, and all the
nymph-worshipping crew!"
I've "reported" as near as no matter! I don't hunderstand more than
arf
Of his patter; he's preciously given to potry and classical charf.
But the cheek on it, CHARLIE! A Stone-broke! I _should_ like to give
him wot for,
Only DANNEL the Dosser's a dab orf of whom t'ain't so easy to score.
[Illustration]
But it's time that this bunkum was bunnicked, bin fur too much on it
of late--
Us on 'OPKINS's 'Ouse-boat, I tell yer, cared nix for the
ink-spiller's "slate."
_I_ mean doin' them Broads later on, for free fishing and shooting,
that's flat.
If I don't give them dash'd Norfolk Dumplings a doing, I'll 'eat my
old 'at.
Rooral quiet, and rest, and refinement? Oh, let 'em go home and eat
coke.
These fussy old footlers whose 'air stands on hend at a row-de-dow
joke,
The song of the skylark sounds pooty, but "skylarking" song's better
fun,
And you carn't do the rooral to-rights on a tract and a tuppenny bun.
As to colour, and kick-up, and sing-song, our party was fair to the
front;
But we wosn't alone; lots of toppers, in 'Ouse-Boat, or four-oar, or
punt,
Wos a doin' the rorty and rosy as lively as 'OPKINS's lot,
Ah! the swells sling it out pooty thick; _they_ ain't stashed by no
ink-spiller's rot.
Bright blazers, and twingle-twang banjoes, and bottles of Bass, my
dear boy,
Lots of dashing, and splashing, and "mashing" are things every man
must enjoy,
And the petticoats ain't fur behind 'em, you bet. While top-ropes I
can carry,
It ain't soap-board slop about "Quiet" will put the clear kibosh on
'ARRY.
* * * * *