(_By One who has to Make Bricks with It._)
["... It is rumoured that a measure will shortly be introduced for
transferring the duties of Revising Barristers to Magistrates."]
Go, tell the budding blooms they'll ne'er have dew more,
Go, doom the summer trees to languish leafless--
A like effect this ultra-fiendish rumour
Works in the drooping bosoms of the Briefless.
No more Reviserships! No paltry pittance
For Themis' harvesters, too often sheafless!
Is this the Constitution, once Great Britain's;
_This_, your provision for the meekly Briefless?
As well proclaim to such as slave at Sessions,
A world unburglarised and wholly thiefless,
As rob the least rewarded of professions
Of its ancestral comfort for the Briefless.
What's to become of us?--I speak for many,
Idle and "Unemployed," but oh! not griefless;
Please, please kind Government to spare a penny,
Or yet Trafalgar Square shall rouse the Briefless.
Yes! Don't imagine, uncomplaining creatures
Are quite disorganised and limp, and chiefless;
Our jaw is one of our most drastic features,
And Art is long, though Life perforce be Briefless.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A REGULAR KNOUT AND KNOUTER!!!]
* * * * *
"'BEN' TROVATO."--Odd that the French author of such truly Parisian stories
as _Coeur d'Actrice_, _L'Amour pour Rire_, _Flirtage_, and others _du meme
genre_, should be named "TILLET." There is a "du" before the French
author's name, and it is of course proverbial that even a certain person in
the Lower House shall have his "due." 'Tis just this, that, as far as name
goes, differentiates him from t'other TILLET, "which his Christian name is
BEN."
* * * * *
Further Fall in Irish Stocks.
(_Vide Daily Papers, Feb. 24, 1893._)
Though mongers of panic, with malice satanic,
The credit of Ireland be troublin',
Home Rule cannot shake her, nor severance break her,
So long as her _capital's D(o)ublin_.'
* * * * *
WEATHER FORECAST BY MRS. R.--"After this cold snowy weather," she observed,
oracularly, "we may expect what they call 'equally obnoxious gales.'"
* * * * *
[Illustration: HISTORY CONTRADICTS ITSELF.
THE MISSES ROUNDABOUT THINK TIGHT SKIRTS A PREPOSTEROUS AND EXTRAVAGANT
INVENTION, AND APPEAR AT MRS. WEASEL'S PARTY IN A SIMPLE AND ELEGANT
ATTIRE. [_Vide "Punch" for Nov. 21, 1857._]
* * * * *