When the "Cat" is not engaged in its employment--
Right employment,
Of laying its nine tails on brutal backs--
Brutal backs,
Street gangs of roughs are free to find employment--
Bad employment,
In beleaguering the cit's returning tracks--
Homeward tracks.
Our feelings we with difficulty smother--!
'Culty smother,
At finding ruffian hordes at rowdy "fun"--
Rowdy fun.
Taking one consideration with another--
With another,
One feels that something stringent should be done--
Promptly done!
There's the pistol-bearing burglar boldly burgling--
Boldly burgling,
There's the female fiend engaged in cruel crime--
Cruel crime.
There's the bashed, half-throttled traveller lying gurgling--
Faintly gurgling,
And the "Cat" is lying idle all the time--
All the time.
There's the brutal bully kicking wife or mother--
Wife or mother,
The unnatural father torturing his son--
Childish son!
Ah, take one consideration with another--
With another,
It's surely time that something stern were done--
Quickly done!
When the "Cat" was laid about the brute garrotter--
Cur garrotter,
He soon found it inadvisable to choke--
'Ble to choke.
And the lout who of street-outrage is a plotter--
Callous plotter,
Would not deem the nine-tailed lash a little joke--
Pleasant joke.
The woman-beating brute would hardly smother--
Scarcely smother,
His howlings when the lash was well laid on--
Well laid on.
So, take one consideration with another--
With another,
The "Cat" should once again be called upon--
Called upon.
The "corner-boys," and larrikins, and suchlike--
Louts and suchlike,
Who rove the streets at night in rowdy gangs--
Robber-gangs,
The tingling o' the nine tails might not much like--
_Would_ not much like,
But _that_ need not stir sentimental pangs--
Maudlin pangs.
"Gang-boy" to brute Garrotter is just brother--
Simply brother.
The "Cat" away such vermin prowl--for "fun"--
Savage fun!
Yes, take one consideration with another--
With another,
The "Cat" should wake again, says _Punch_ for one--
_Punch_ for one!
The policeman seems unequal to the job--
Toughish job.
The constabulary fails to quell the mob--
Rowdy mob.
So, as, very plainly, something _must_ be done--
Promptly done,
The suggestion of the "Cat"'s a happy one--
Happy one!
[_And Mr. Punch, with picture and poem_ (_grimly earnest,
though of Gilbertian tone_) _urges its application
energetically home, upon the powers that be_.
* * * * *
[Illustration: AGRICULTURAL MANNERS.