Punch (95.1888)

170

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[October 13, 1888.

HORRIBLE LONDON: OR, THE PANDEMONIUM OF POSTERS.

The Demon set forth in a novel disguise And beat them all roundat the Bill-sticker's art,

(All methods of mischief the master-fiend tries) I will set up in business in Babylon's mart.
Quoth he, "There's much ill to be wrought through A° +Vl° T,ew "PnnrlfiTnoTniim Poster ! »
the eyes.
I think, without being a boaster,
I can °lve their most 'cute Advertisers a start,

As the new Pandemonium Poster!'
So he roved the huge city with wallet at waist,
With a brush, and a stick, and a pot full of paste,
And there wasn't a wall or a hoarding,

A space in a slum, or a blank
on a fence,

A spare square of brick in a
neighbourhood dense,
Or a bit of unoccupied
boarding,

But there the new poster, who
didn't much care

For the menacing legend,
" Bill-stickers beware ! "
Right soon was tremen-
dously busy

With placards portentous in
purple and blue, [hue,

Of horrible subj ect and hideous

Enough to bemuddle an aero-
naut's view,
And turn the best steeple-
Jack dizzy.

Oh, the flamboyant flare of
those fiendish designs,

With their sanguine paint-
splashes and sinister lines!
Gehenna seemed visibly
glaring

In paint from those villanous
daubs. There were men

At murderous work in mal-
odorous den,
And ghoul-woman grue-
somely staring.

The whole sordid drama of
murder and guilt,

The steel that strikes home, and
the blood that is spilt,
Was pictured in realist
colours,

With emphasis strong on the

black and the red,
The fear of the stricken, the

glare of the dead ;
All dreads and disasters and

dolours

That haunt poor Humanity's
dismallest state,

The horrors of crime "and the
terrors of fate,
As conceived by the crudest
of fancies,

Were limned on these posters
in terrible tints,

In the style of the vilest sen-
sational prints
Or the vulgarest [penny
romances.

That Bill-sticker paused in his

work with a look
Which betrayed the black de-
mon, and gleesomely shook
His sides in a spasm of

laughter.
Ouoth he, with a sinister wag

of his head,
"By my horns, the good artist

has lavished the red!
This home of coarse horror—

this house of the dead
Looks crimson from base-
ment to rafter.
How strange that a civilised

City—ho! ho!
Tis their fatuous dream to

consider it so ! —
Which is nothing too lovely at

best, should bestow
Such a liberal licence on

spoilers!
These mural monstrosities,

reeking of crime,
Flaring horridly forth amidst

squalor and grime,
Must have an effect which will

tell in good time
Upon legions of dull-witted

toilers.