"Now what, we ask, is become of this Sinking Fund--these eight
millions of surplus above expenditure, which were to reduce the
interest of the national debt by the amount of four hundred thousand
pounds annually? Where, indeed, is the Sinking Fund itself?"
--_The Times_.
Take your bell, take your bell,
Good Crier, and tell
To the Bulls and the Bears, till their ears are stunned,
That, lost or stolen,
Or fallen thro' a hole in
The Treasury floor, is the Sinking Fund!
O yes! O yes!
Can anybody guess
What the deuce has become of this Treasury wonder?
It has Pitt's name on't,
All brass, in the front,
And Robinson's scrawled with a goose-quill under.
Folks well knew what
Would soon be its lot,
When Frederick and Jenky set hob-nobbing,[1]
And said to each other,
"Suppose, dear brother,
"We make this funny old Fund worth robbing."
We are come, alas!
To a very pretty pass--
Eight Hundred Millions of score, to pay,
With but Five in the till,
To discharge the bill,
And even that Five, too, whipt away!
Stop thief! stop thief!--
From the Sub to the Chief,
These _Gemmen_ of Finance are plundering cattle--
Call the watch--call Brougham,
Tell Joseph Hume,
That best of Charleys, to spring his rattle.
Whoever will bring
This aforesaid thing
To the well-known House of Robinson and Jenkin,
Shall be paid, with thanks,
In the notes of banks,
Whose Funds have all learned "the Art of Sinking."
O yes! O yes!
Can anybody guess
What the devil has become of this Treasury wonder?
It has Pitt's name on't,
All brass, in the front,
And Robinson's, scrawled with a goose-quill under.
[1] In 1824, when the Sinking Fund was raised by the imposition of new
taxes to the sum of five millions.