Punch (53.1867)

November 9, 1867.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

185

IN BE BUTCHER.

(song by a solicitor.)

Thou who six-and-eight-pence after
Six-and-eight-pence lopp’st away,
Often with unfeeling laughter.

From the bills that clients pay,
Faster goes the cash and faster,

Our insides with meat to fill;
Taxing-master, Taxing-master,

Tax, oh tax my Butcher’s Bill!

Oh, the price that beef and mutton
Cost me for my humble board !
Butchers never care a button
Veal that we can scarce afford.
When we lay it on like plaster,

Thou dost take the thick off still:
Taxing-master, Taxing-master,

Tax, oh tax my Butcher’s Bill.

Fish with meat hath risen in measure,
Poultry out of reach far fly,

Game is a forbidden pleasure,

Being more than ever high.

Dearth of food’s a dire disaster ;

Would thou could’st avert that ill.
Taxing-master, Taxing-master,

Tax, oh tax my Butcher’s Bill.

Very Appropriate.

The Edinburgh public dinner to the Chancellor of
the Exchequer took place in the Corn Exchange in the
! Grassmarket. The Corn Exchange would remind Mr.
Disraeli of the alteration in his views on the question
of Free Trade ; the Grassmarket might make him wonder
whether his hearers were green enough to believe all lie
| told them. _

The Round of Pleasure.—The trois-temps step

waltz.

FAGIN’S ACADEMY.

“ Now, mark this ; because these are things which you miy not have heard in
any speech which has been male in the city of Edinburgh. (Laughter and
clieers.) I bad—if it be not. arrogant to use such a phrase— to educate our party.
It is a large party, and requires its atte itioa to be called to questions of this kind
with some pressure I bad to prepare the mind of Parliament and the country on
this question of Re orm.”—Mr. Disraeli's Speech at the Edinburgh Banquet.

Yes —that it was, my dears, the work o’ seven long years,

And little time enough, patience kuows, for such a job :

If you’ll think that I’d to teach sleight o’ baud as well as speech,
Something more than “ frisking till,” £' snaking skin,” or “ faking
fob.”

Por seveu long years I taught, ’em, when once I’d been and brought ’em
To Fugiris private school—my own Academy of Arts:

Your Carnarvons might ride rusty, or your Ckanbornes cut up
crusty,

But most of ’em took kindly to my teachin’, bless their ’earts !

First, I taught ’em grace at meat,—their own words how to eat,—

But, mind you, not served up with dirt, in a nasty humble pie ;

But with pepper and sharp sauce and auxfines verbes of course —

And fine words do butter parsnips—them as says they don’t, they lie.

Then, the next thiug they’d to learn was their coats how to turn.

So as no one mightn’t know ’em, and, perticler, the police :

How to slip out of one skin, and another to slip in,

And to look as if it fitted, close as wax, and slick as grease.

And, if copped, to queer the jug, by makiug up a mug,

Afore the beak, aud swearing they’d not changed coats at all:

That to do’t’s a thing they’d scorn—-that the coat was one they’d
worn.

The same side out, from when they was they couldn’t say how small.

Then I taught ’em how to twist, with a flourish of the wrist,

Opinions into all shapes, as pr’aps you’ve seen the man,

Who used to fold a paper, till by an artful caper

It assumed the form of sentry-box, hat, flower-pot, lady’s fan'

Then they bad to learn the sleight of making black look white,

And keeping a grave face while that little game they play •

First convictions howto hide : qualms and scruples to o’er-ride:

And to swaller down the ticket, if a pledge stood in the way.

Last l had to make ’em fly, not at faking “ skin” or “ cly,”

But picking a party’s pocket of note of hand and bill,

With fains so sharp and true that the party never knew
Till the trick was done, and the png was gone, and the swag safe
in my till!

PITY THE POOR EXCISEMEN.

A Man must be uncommonly benevolent in mind to feel much pity
for a tax-gatherer who considers he is underpaid for his service to the
State. Still we dare say some few people may feel some slight stir of
sympathy when they learn that an exciseman, after twenty years of
service, is only paid a salary of £150 a year. According t.o their own
account, excisemen do more work than their brother tax-collectors, and
receive a great deal less than half as much for what they do. Besides,
to show how well they work, whenever stamps or taxes have been
issued or collected by the officers of excise, the revenue, they say,
has been invariably increased : yet the pay of the excisemen remains
at its low ebb. Moreover it is stated that:—

‘‘The locil assessors of taxes, who are irresponsible to the Crown, number up-
wards of 50 000, and receive in poundage for their inefficient services £150,' 00
annually. By consolid ition, and employment of the Excise in the worn of assess-
ing, fully £100,000 would be annually saved.”

A strike of tax-gatherers is somewhat of an odd event to contem-
plate : but. it appears that the excisemen have really some fair grounds
for their demand for an inquiry into the system now pursued lor the
collection of the revenue; and if they can manage to save us the small
trifle of £100,000 a year, we surely can afford to pay them a small trifle
extra for their service.

“ Ip Nap knows it.”—The latest news from Italy makes it pretty
certain that for the present at least Rome is “Not lor Joseph”—
I Garibaldi.