Punch (94.1888)

74

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON. CHARIVARI. [February 18, 1888.

HERCULES IN THE AUGEAN STABLE.

Good luck to you, Hercules! Ply the hose steadily;

Water enough you will need for this task.
All men of honour will back you right readily.

What better sort of " Spring Clean" could they ask ?
Augeas himself had not horse-stalls uncleaner;

Alpheus-Peneus combined they might tax.
Those muck-heaps are dear to the fouler and meaner,

But lay your stout Club on their rascally backs.

The Muck-Mammon rules in these realms too completely,
The taint of his touch seems on all. high and low.

To make these vast stalls smell a little more sweetly,
Is quite an heroical task, as things go.

So go it, my Hercules ! sluice away "smartly;

The place stands in very sore need of a scrub;
And if vested interests in filth should talk tartly,

Just silence the knaves with a tap of that Club I

Doves with a Difference.—Almost all oyer Europe it appears
that carrier-pigeons are in course of being trained for service in the
event of War. All pigeons are doves, bat the Continental carrier-
pigeon is evidently a bird of quite another feather than the ideal
dove that allegorically bears the olive-branch. Perhaps, however,
it will be branches of Bitter Olives that these War pigeons will
oarry.