Punch (90.1886)

110

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 6, 1886.

INTERIORS AND EXTERIORS. No. 29.

THE STOCK EXCHANGE.

The gate-keepers know me, my old figgerhead asks the question

itself, and the answer comes pat.
" Any chance of a job ? " If I wanted to rob, or to beg, the snub

couldn't come sharper, that's flat.
Can you guess how 1 feel as I turn on my heel with the dull

hang- dog look that comes over a chap
After passing his day-hours from week-end to week-end in tramping,

and trying, and touching his cap P
I feel like a dog nosing after a bone, and that feeling ain't likely to

stiffen one's back.
Sometimes an old chum stands a glass, just for luck, or invites me

to join in his one o'clock snack;
But mostly it's nix minus nothing all day, and at night with the

wife and the nippers, you see,
If there is bite and sup, 'taint much strength a man gets out of

bread and potatoes, and cat-lappy tea.

If it weren't for a pipe now and then from the pouch of this party or

that, I could hardly hold on,
And the Missus can't whiff, nor the young 'uns, worse luck! and

our best bits o'things, one by one, are all gone.
There's nothing to raise half a dollar on left that I see. The wife's

wedding-ring, Polly's first prize,
My pet concertina, and most of our togs,—ah ! the look of the place

brings the tears to one's eyes.

" Come up to the Park," says Jack Ruggles—he spouts—" and just

hear me lay on to the rich 'uns." Not me !
Chucking things ain't my mark, whether words or half bricks.

Master Jack never works, and he's brisk as a bee.

IN SEAECH Or A JOB.

A Voice from the Ranks of the Really Unemployed.

" Ant chance of a job ? " That's the fiftieth time I have put the

same question already this week,
The fiftieth time I have had the same answer, a sharp-spoken "No,

Mate !" I might as well seek
A fortune as fourpence an hour in these times ; and the Missus and

kids they are just about done.
Some Swell asks the question if life is worth living. He'd answer

it sharp after months o' this fun.

Worth living? You've heard of some hard-driven chaps as have

finished the game off with pistol or knife ;
Then they call it insanity, don't they ? No doubt; but you give

beak or bobby a taste of this life,
Say for just a short twelvemonth, and they'd understand how it

raises the fiend in a broken-down bloke
When the sticks are all sold, and the young 'uns go white, and of

work, that would save 'em, you can't get a stroke.

I've walked off my boot-soles a-tramping the town in the frost and

the slush, and with nothing inside.
Been down to the Docks ; I can handle my tools, but six months of

starvation soon lowers one's pride.
I've tried every shop from Blackf riars to Blackwall, and as far t'other

way—ah, for seven mile round!
And if there's a job in the whole blessed place, then my luck is dead

out, for it ain't to be found.