Punch: Punch (56.1869)

Behold three gallant gentlemen
Beside their true loves three!

There ’s Tom, the bearded Englishman,

On Dora doateth he:

There’s Mat, the whisker’d Welshman bold,
And Ethel is bis queen;

And Sandy Bob, the Scotsman, loves
Eair Maud (in velveteen).

THE OTTOMAN

And Dora doats upon the beard
That decks that English face;

And Ethel loves the whiskers which
Those bold Welsh cheeks do grace;
And Maud adores that Scottish man,
And, if the truth be told,

Iiis Caledonian sandiness
Doth seem to her like gold!

Now, some would be that Welshman fain.
And some that sandy Scot,

And some that bearded Englishman,

With Dora for his lot:

But as for me, I’d sooner be
Of all the men I ’ve known,

That fond and foolish Ottoman,

Bor reasons of mine own !

COMMITTED TOE TEIAL.

“ The Lord Mayor said that, after much anxious consideration, he and J
his colleague had determined to commit the defendants for trial. A cheer j
rang through the Court at this announcement, which was taken up in Cheap-
side.”—Report of the proceedings on the charge of conspiracy to defraud, of
the Directors of Overend, Gurney, & Co. Limited.

“ Committed for trial! ” A cheer, long and loud,

Erom Guildhall and its court, to Cheapside and its crowd !

Pour, virtuous John Bull, pour wrath’s bitterest vial;

But let’s be quite sure who’s committed for trial!

On the bench, a Lord Mayor : in the dock, six Directors,

Looking pale in the light of a host of reflectors—

A crowd their committal to Newgate who’d hail,

Bat for smug millionnaires’ and M.P.’s eager bail.

Let us own we’ve sat through an instructive dissection ;

Had a “ Great House ” laid out, by the knife, for inspection :
Neither lens has been stinted, nor scalpel been spared ;

All its depths we’ve had probed, all its nakedness bared,

Watched each gangrene bisected, and bandied each sore,

Until the poor “subject ” could teach us no more.

Enough ! Cover up the dishonoured remains :

Bear a hand with a backet to wash down the stains.

Eor if’twas instructive, ’twas sickening too,

When one thinks that the subject might be I or you,

Tlie shout of the crowd seems to jar on my ear •

And, do what I will, I can’t echo the cheer.

Are they cheering that pride should have come to a fall?

Or that “ great ” men are made to rub shoulders with small ?
Or rejoicing that Justice has one set of weights
Eor penniless pickers and squires with estates ?

Then better were silence of sorrow and shame,

At the thought Justice could have had weights not the same :
That ’twas cause for exulting to have it made sure
That the law for the rich was the law for the poor.

Bose the cheer from the victims, their ruin that owe
To blind faith in these names, once so high, now so low ?
Then silence were better, and veiling the face :

Theirs the loss, but all England’s, methinks, the disgrace.

If they ’re guilty, no cheer: why insult the bowed head ?

Why pour bitter scorn where foul ashes are spread ?

If they’re guiltless, no cheer: they but went with the throng,
Blind, blundering o’er landmarks between right and wrong.

In no issue a cheer, but a groan and a cry

Eor the soil’d name of England, that once stood so high—

Stood so high, has so fallen, through gold’s abject lust.

That they who would seek it must look in the dust.

A Handsome Commission Expected.

A Hint for an enterprising Art Publisher. Bring out views pi a
well-known watering-place on the Norfolk Coast in Cromer-litho-
graphy.