The muse is dull!--the day is dead!
And vain is all endeavour
To light afresh the poet's spark--
I _can't_ find a rhyme for the winner,
_Iddesleigh_,
P.S.--Really it's most thoughtless of owners to harass one with such
names!
* * * * *
"IN THIS STYLE, TWO-AND-SIX."
(IN THE POUND).
SIR,--I have been much struck with the suggestion to do without hats,
and have made trial of the system. It has also made trial of _me_,
in the way of colds in the head, bronchial catarrh, &c., but I still
persevere. _It's so much cheaper!_ I have sold my stock of old
hats for half-a-crown, and calculate that I shall save _quite three
shillings per annum_ by not buying new ones. Surely anybody can see
that this is well worth doing! I am now seriously contemplating the
possibility of _doing without boots_!
Yours truly, SAVE THE SAXPENCES.
SIR,--Talk about hair growing if you leave off hats! My hair
was falling off in handfuls a little time ago. Did I abjure hats
altogether? Not being a born idiot, I did not. But I saw that what was
needed was proper ventilation aloft. So I had a specially-constructed
top-hat made, with holes all round it. In fact there were more holes
than hat, and the hatter scornfully referred to it as a "sieve." The
invention answered splendidly. There was a thorough draught constantly
rushing across the top of my head, with the speed and violence of a
first-class tornado. My locks, before so scanty, at once began to grow
in such profusion that it now seems impossible to stop them, except
by liberal applications of "Crinificatrix," the Patent Hair Restorer.
_That_ checks the growth effectually. My general name among chance
acquaintances is "Old Doormat." You can judge how thick my hair must
be and I ascribe it entirely to the beneficent action of the draught,
as before,
Yours, WELL-COVERED.
DEAR SIR,--Why would it be a mistake to say that a Negro was "as
black as my hat?" _Because I never wear one._ The only inconvenience
resulting is in wet weather--but, even then, I am prepared for all
emergencies. I keep in my pocket a little square of black waterproof,
to cover my head when it rains. In an Assize town, the other day, I
was followed by an angry crowd, who imagined that I was one of the
Judges, and that I had gone mad, and was walking about the streets
with the black cap on! But all true reformers are treated in this way,
even in England, the land of Liberty.
Yours, HATZOFF.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE JERRY-BUILDING JABBERWOCK.]
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"--
Ah, CARROLL! it is not in fun
Your song's light lilt we snatch.
Our Jabberwock's a _real_ brute,
With mighty maw, and ruthless hand,
Who ravage makes beyond compute
In Civic Blunderland.
Look at the ogre's hideous mouth!
His tiger-teeth, his dragon-tail!
O'er Town, East, West, and North and South,
He leaves his slimy trail.
And where he comes all Beauty dies,
And where he halts all Greenery fades.
Pleasantness flies where'er he plies
His gruesomest of trades.
He blights the field, he blasts the wood,
With breath as fierce as prairie flame;
And where sweet works of Nature stood,
He leaves us--slums of shame.
The locust and the canker-worm
Are not more ruinous than he.
"I'll take this Eden--for a term!"
He cries, and howls with glee.
"Beauty? Mere bosh! Charm? Utter rot!
What boots your 'Earthly Paradise,'
Until 'tis made 'A Building Plot'?
Then it indeed looks nice!
"O Jerry Street! O Jerry Park!
O Jerry Gardens, Jerry Square!--
You won't discover--what a lark!--
One 'touch of Nature' there!
"'This handsome Villa Residence'
Means mud-built walls and clay-clogged walks;
And drains offensive to the sense,
And swamps whence fever stalks.
"Beauty's best friends I drive away,
Artists who sketch, ramblers who rove,
Lovers who spoon, children who play,--
All, all who Nature love.
"Nor do I give them wholesome homes
For verdant meads--no, there's the fun!
Stuccodom, frail and sickly, comes
After 'Lot Twenty-One!'
"I make a clearing, dig a trench,
Run up a shell of rotten bricks.
And thus the rule of sham and stench
Upon the 'site' I fix.
"The ugly and unhealthy still
Associate with the name of Jerry;
And thus I work my wicked will,
And flourish, and make merry!"
'Twas so the Jerry-Jabberwock
Sang in a suburb, void of shame,
Blunderland's civic will to mock,
And put its sense to shame.
This ogre of our towns to slay,
Where is the urban "Beamish Boy"?
CARROLL, when comes that "frabjous day,"
_We_'ll "chortle in our joy."
Young County Council, are _you_ one?
'Tis said you're but a Bumble-batch!
Beware the Jobjob Bird, and shun
The Bigot-Bandersnatch!
We'll pardon much that seems absurd,
Excuse some blunders that bewilder,
If you'll but "draw your vorpal sword"
And slay--the Jerry-Builder!
* * * * *
[Illustration: METAMORPHOSIS.
("_We know what we are, but we know not what we may be._")
_Conductor_. "TAKE YER TO THE CIRCUS, AND THERE YOU'LL CHANGE INTO A
HELEPHANT."
_Master Kenneth_. "OH, MOTHER, WHAT A JOLLY CIRCUS! MAY WE GO AND SEE
THE OLD GENTLEMAN CHANGE INTO AN ELEPHANT?"]
* * * * *