Punch (63.1872)

August 3, 1872.]

53

A NARCOTIC.

Doctor. " Look here, Mrs. McCawdle. Don't give him any mobe Physic.
A sound Sleep will do him more Good than Anything."

Gudeivife. " E-h, Doothor, if we could only Get him tab the Kirk ! !"

A LOFTY EXAMPLE.

BIRDS OUT OE THE BILL.

Excluded from the Wild Fowl Bill

People may shoot me if they will.

A little fruit our kind regales,

But we devour more slugs and snails ;

Protection for my song is due,"

Exclaimed the Thrush and Blackbird, too.

" Why leave out me?" the Skylark said,
" Me, upon insects chiefly fed ;
Me, your bright bird to soar and sing,
And make you music on the wing."

The Whitethroat murmured : " And we twain,
The Less and Greater, sing in vain,
Among the excluded we both figure,
The Smaller Whitethroat and the Bigger."

The Warbler (Garden) breathed a doubt.
" I wonder why they 've left me out.
'' Mean they to eat me ? I suppose
Some one the Beccafico knows.
But then the Wheatear goes shot-free,
Although a dainty, too, is he."

" They've overlooked, or did they strike
Me out?" cried Blue and Red-backed Shrike.
" Its head the Game List me did bear on;
This Bill ignores me," said the Heron.

The Rook observed, " They've passed me by.
They shoot our young to make rook-pie.
But I'm an old bird, and let Man
Get a shot at me if he can ! "

The Paven croaked " I'm out! " " And so
Am I," did likewise croak the Crow.
" The Scavengers of Nature Few
Have, as it is, grown we and you."
" Bedad, and Herbert ought to blush,"
Remarked the gentle Irish Thrush,
" He's left me out among the bunch,
Though my long note's, in Saxon, Punch." *

" Passed over ! " jabbered the Jackdaw.
"What for?" " I, too," the Jay shrieked, "Yah!
I suck some few eggs; they determine,
Therefore, to class me with the Vermin."
" And me," the Magpie chattering cried,
" With Vermin, too, they've left outside."
" So," screamed the Kestrel, "me they class.
Whereas the very greatest Ass,
On commons that is wont to browse,
Could tell them that I only mouse."

"Vermin be hanged, if that's their talk
Of me," avowed the Sparrowhawk.
The Hobby and the Merlin owned
The same. " What if some chicks they boned ?

Among the inhabitants of London and its neighbourhood some enjoy the How picturesque they looked on flight!

advantage of an option between the water of the River Thames and that of So Buzzard also spoke, and Kite,

Artesian wells for drinking purposes. Using the former only for purposes of J And Harriers, skimming here and there,

ablution, they will derive comparatively moderate gratification from the following j And nobler Hawks and Falcons rare,

item of intelligence:— " Why not protect the Birds of Prey ?

" The Sewage of Windsor Castle.—Very extensive works are now in progress for They'd kill us down ; and who are they ?

the drainage of Windsor Castle, and the utilisation of the sewage of the Palace and Frog- j The Landed Poulterers, counter-bred,
more House."

Even those, however, to whom the Thames water is a fluid merely, as the labels
on the lotion bottles say, for external use, must be not a little glad to hear that
arrangements are in progress for enabling that river to flow minus the addi-
tions it has been wont to receive from Windsor Castle and the dependency
thereof abovenamed. It is expected that those arrangements "will be com-
pleted before the return of the Qxjeen to Windsor in the Winter." Although
it will be a merely local abolition of certain superfluous tributaries to the
Thames which will then have been effected, yet that will be an instalment
of sanitary reform, and in these matters every little helps, as to augment,
so likewise to diminish the impurity of an ocean; still more that of a river.
Windsor Castle, it is well known, stands upon an eminence where it is an object
conspicuous for many miles of country round. So now it will shortly be in a
condition to be pointed out as an example to many towns more or less distant on
the banks of the river which they as yet continue to infect with material
which they might utilise, and save the Water Companies the expense and
trouble of separating it, some of it, from the water which water-rate payers,
most of them, drink. In the meantime, perhaps, the steep crowned by Windsor
Castle will be distinguished for time to come, by the eulogistic name of Mount
Pleasant.

Odd Taste.

If, as is commonly supposed, to eat coal is symptomatic of a morbid con-
dition of consumption, we are in a bad way, for just now that article is in
everybody's mouth.

Loss of a little game who dread.
And therefore doom to extirpation
Us chivalry of plumed creation."

* This statement is reported on the authority of a fair Irist
Correspondent, who addresses us from Cork.

CITY INTELLIGENCE.

Here is the latest bit of news from the true Ton
Tiddler's Ground :—

"Paved with Gold.—A plot containing one hundred anc
twenty thousand square feet of land on the Holborn Viaduct has
been let upon a building lease for Fifteen Thousand Pounds pel
annum."

" Some men have plenty money," as the Waggawocb
observed ; but it does not always follow that they have
"no brains." A man clearly must have plenty money
to be able to pay fifteen thousand sterling pounds a
year for just eight times that number of square feet of
building ground. Still, such payment must not hastily
be taken as a proof that he is afflicted with deficiency
of brains. On the contrary, City rents are so continually
rising, that his building lease may turn out a lucky
speculation, and by no means show a weakness in his
upper storey.