["In a grain of butter you have 47,250,000 microbes. When you eat
a slice of bread-and-butter, you therefore must swallow as many
microbes as there are people in Europe."--"Science Notes" in
_Daily Chronicle_.]
Charlotte, eating bread-and-butter,
Read this Note with horror utter,
And (assisted by the cutter)
Went on eating bread-and-butter!
Man will say--with due apology
To alarmed Bacteriology--
Spite of menacing bacilli,
Man _must_ eat, friend, willy-nilly!
And where _shall_ he find due foison
If e'en bread-and-butter's poison?
Science told our amorous Misses
Death may be conveyed _in kisses_;
But it did not keep the nation
From promiscuous osculation.
Now it warneth the "Young Person"
(Whom GRANT ALLEN voids his curse on)
"Bread-and-butter Misses" even
In _their_ food may find death's leaven!
Never mind how this is made out!
Science--as a Bogey's--played out.
Spite all warnings it may utter,
Women _will_ have Bread-and-Butter!
* * * * *