(_Scene from the New and Unpopular Sensation Drama of "The Monopoly-Monster
and the Maid Forlorn."_)
["A large number of complaints have reached the Board of Trade
with regard to increase in the new rates adopted by Railway
Companies as from January 1 ... among other complaints of increase
of rates for the conveyance of milk, grain, hay and other
agricultural produce, firewood, live stock, coal and coke, iron
and hardware."--Sir COURTENAY BOYLE _to the Secretary of the
Railway Companies Association_.]
Oh! who'll bring a rescue or two to the help of a much-injured Maid,
Thus cruelly bound hand and foot, and by miscreants ruthlessly laid
On the lines, in the Pathway of Peril? The Monster snorts nearer! Bohoo!
'Tis a Melodrame-crisis of danger!--and _who'll_ bring a rescue or two?
The Maid (British Trade), has been harried and hunted by villains and
robbers,
By bold, bad, black-masked foreign foes, and by home-bred monopolist
jobbers.
In town or in country alike the poor dear has been chevied and chased.
By rivals deceitful and dark, and by kindred deboshed and debased.
She once was a proud reigning beauty, who now is a maid all forlorn,
As hopeless and helpless, and tearful as RUTH midst the alien corn.
Or poor Proserpine snatched by dark Pluto afar from the day and the
light;
Torn away--like this maiden--from Ceres, and wrapt--like this maiden--in
night.
Perchance she was just a bit haughty in virginal safety and pride;
No rival too near her high throne, Prince FORTUNIO aye at her side;
But now a poor PERDITA, prone at the feet of her foes she lies bound,
And that melodramatic thud-thud draweth near--a most menacing sound!
Ah! sure 'twas enough to deprive the Maid of Protection, her trust!
But this is the last straw of burden that bows her poor back to the dust.
That Monster _should_ be her sworn henchman, and now she lies bound in
his path!
Oh! where is the hero who'll rush to her rescue, in chivalrous wrath?
Such champion always turns up--on the stage! CHAPLIN, WINCHILSEA, BOYLE,
HOWARD-VINCENT & Co., here's your chance. Shall she be that big Monster's
mere spoil?
Ah! Surely the Maid is too lovely to leave to the murderous crew
Of the Monster Monopoly's myrmidons! _Who_'ll bring a rescue or two?
* * * * *
Her First Appearance.
"What! a new Magazine!" just so,
First number, January, "Oh!
So far? yet farther sure will go
_The Mother._"
* * * * *
"SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN BAD WEATHER."--"SANDFORD" writes of this to the
_Times_. Why doesn't MERTON--our TOMMY MERTON--speak? And what has the
venerated Mr. BARLOW got to say?
* * * * *
"THE SITUATION IN EUROPE."--Monte Carlo (_i.e._, for the winter months).
* * * * *