_Chorus of Loyal Ladies of Various Ages._ There--they're clearing
the way--the Prince and Princess won't be long now. Here's the Life
Guards' Band--don't they look byootiful in those dresses? Won't that
poor drummer's arms ache to-morrow? This is the escort coming now....
'Ere come the Royalties. Don't push so, POLLY, you can see without
that!... There, that was the Prince in the first one--did yer see him,
POLLY? Oh, yes, leastwise I see the end of a cocked 'at, which I
took to be 'im. Yes, _that_ was 'im right enough.... There goes the
Princess--_wasn't_ she looking nice? I couldn't exactly make out which
was her and which was the two young Princesses, they went by all in
a flash like, but they _did_ look nice!... 'Ere's another Royalty in
this kerridge--'oo will she be, I wonder? Oh, I expect it would be the
old Duchess of---- No, I don't think it was _'er_,--she wasn't
looking pleasant enough,--and she's dead, too.... Now they have got
inside--'ark at them playing bits of "_God Save the Queen_." Well, I'm
glad I've seen it.
_A Son (to cheery old Lady)._ 'Ow are you gettin' on, Mother, eh?
_Ch. O. L._ First-rate, thankee, JOHN, my boy.
_Son._ You ain't tired standing about so long?
_Ch. O. L._ Lor' bless you, no. Don't you worry about _me_.
_Son._ Could you see 'em from where you was?
_Ch. O. L._ I could see all the coachmen's 'ats beautiful. We'll wait
and see 'em all come out, JOHN, won't we? They won't be more than an
hour and a half in there, I dessay.
_A Person with a Florid Vocabulary._ Well, if I'd ha' known all I
was goin' to see was a set o' blanky nobs shut up in their blank-dash
kerridges, blank my blanky eyes if I'd ha' stirred a blanky foot,
s'elp me Dash, I wouldn't!
_A Vendor (persuasively)._ The kerrect lengwidge of hevery flower that
blows--one penny!
* * * * *
[Illustration: EXCHANGE NO ROBBERY.]
* * * * *
"ALLOWED TO STARVE."--_Mr. Punch_ begs to acknowledge contribution
from "PAISLEY" to "The Light Brigade Fund," which has been forwarded
to the Editor of the _St. James's Gazette_, who has charge of this
Fund.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE AUTOCRAT.]
"Here is my last request and legacy! After we are executed,
and while the impression of this epilogue of all these horrors
is still fresh in the minds of the people, do your utmost to
make this new example of the unparalleled cruelty of Russian
despotism known to the whole world.... This is a great task
well worth accomplishing; and if you succeed, the losses we
suffered in that terrible butchery will be redeemed."--_From
the last letter, written just before his execution, of
Nicholas Zotoff, one of the victims of the Yakoutsk massacre._
LET it be known! Poor soul, of unshaken trust,
So done to death in the gloom of the Kara waste,
'Midst a myriad nameless victims of fear and lust,
Your cry comes, borne on the chainless winds that haste
In shuddering flight away from that frozen hell,
That pestilent prison for all things free and fair,
Where the raven's croak is the patriot's only knell
On the tainted air.
Let it be known! Aye! the cruel secret crawls,
Despite the vigilant watch of tyranny's hounds,
From the scaffold's screen, from the kamera's sombre walls;
Away, as you wished, o'er enfranchised lands it sounds,
And shocks the gentle, and stirs the blood of the strong;
But he, the Autocrat, sits, with a shaken mind,
And a palsied heart; to the tale of horror and wrong
He's deaf and blind!
Pale ladies lashed, at the word of a drunken brute,
To the death they welcome e'en from the torturing "plet!"
And his eyes are blind, and his trembling lips are mute,
Whilst the eyes of a world of shuddering men are wet.
Chained gangs of patriot captives stabbed or shot
At the scared caprice of a bully, craven-souled!
And the Autocrat, whilst all hearts with shame wax hot,
Sits still and cold!
Ust-Kara's far, and the hasty scaffold reared
In the grey of the early morning bore--a fool,
Who had not learned that Law must be blindly feared,
Though sent to the stern Siberian wastes to school.
The unconvicted exile who dares to lift
A voice, a hand, is a proven "Terrorist."
And if, in Yakoutsk, he is given a shortish shrift,
Need the White TZAR list?
The White TZAR sits on his gorgeous seat, alone;
Blindfold and deaf, in his realm the veriest slave,
Though the seat he fills is the rack men call a Throne,
And the TZAR is a stalwart Titan, strong and brave.
Strong--yet helpless as yon slain woman's hand;
Brave--but shaken through with a haunting Fear.
Of all his myrmidons' devilries done in the land
The last to hear!
Let it be known! Poor ZOTOFF'S legacy wakes
A living echo in every ear humane.
E'en the Autocrat in his lonely splendour quakes
At the vague vast sounds of menace no bonds restrain.
But there, in the heart of horrors, he sits and sighs,
Blindfold Injustice bound to a joyless throne;
Whilst far the voice of his fallen victim flies--
"_Let it be known!_"
* * * * *
[Illustration: A DISTINCTION AND A DIFFERENCE.
"Now what are the peculiar Distinctions of the Quakers? For instance,
how do they Speak differently From You and Me?"
"Please, Sir, they don't Swear!"]
* * * * *