170 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [0 OTOBBR 12, 1889.

GROUND GAME.”

Wife. “Ah, then yon ’ye been successful at last, Dear!”

Husband (prevaricating). “Ye—yes, I bagged-”

Wife (sniffing). “And high Time you did ! I should say by the—oh !—it must be
Cooked to-day ! ” \It came out afterwards the Impostor had bagged it at the Poulterer's

UNTILED; OR, THE MODERN ASMODEUS.

YI.

“ ‘ Rookeries must be put down! ’ ” So, ten
years since,

All speakers, priest, philanthropist, or prince
Accorded in asserting. [mist

To-night look here ! This scene of mirk and
Confronts the economic analyst.

Pray, is it not diverting P ”

So my guide queried with a mirthless smile.
Darkness possessed the city mile on mile,

But here the night’s thick shadows
W ere dusk with horror and with foulness dank.
Strange that so nauseous a nook should rank
’Midst the world’s Eldorados!

Here, in cold scorn of decency and health,
Proceeds that manufacturing of wealth

Which seems the Town’s chief duty.
Mammon’s alembic in this dreary den
Drains, like a succubus, the sap of men,

And woman’s youth and beauty.

The steam that surges up like Tophet’s breath
From this dim haunt of toil, and sin, and
Reeks with a foul infection. [death,
What if some moral search - light’s sudden
glare

The loathly secrets of the slum laid bare
To Fashion’s close inspection?

Here festering toil, there congregated crime,
In thiek miasma, and ’midst sodden slime 1
This rotting roof-tree covers

Two swiftly-stitching creatures, haggard,
pale; [and vale.

And they once wandered free through wold
Young, healthy, rustic lovers.

Drawn by the ever-widening whirlpool down
To the huge maddening Maelstrom called the
Town,

Behold them vainly swelling
That great competitive Carmagnole-dance,
More frenzied than the frantic whirl of France,
Whose music is death’s knelling.

What Dance of Death, what Witches’ Round,
indeed, _ [Greed ?

More dread than that wild whirl of Need and
Madmen tarantula-bitten,

Dervishes frenzy-fired, less blindly spin _
Than captives of that huge commercial gin,
By hope-light never litten.

“These hoped,” my guide exclaimed, “for
some brief space, _ [grace.
Whilst he had manhood, and whilst she had
Thy rack, relentless Labour,

Soon slays down all the sweetnesses of Life.
How soon will they relinquish the fierce strife,
Like her, their hideous neighbour ?

“ She laboured once, once loved. Strange
product, she,

Of Laissez Faire and the new Chivalry ! ”

Not toiling, nay nor spinning, _

This other spectre of the Slum ; she sits
With slattern garb and spirit-sodden wits.
That smile once sweet and winning ?

The satyr grinning of a classic mask _

Leers less revolting. Drudgery’s grinding task,
Has this for one fair issue.

Labour unstirred by love, unstarred by hope,
Leads hither ! Yain to weave the glittering
In poesy’s golden tissue. [trope

The dignity of labour ? Taking phrase,

To form a tag for song in simpler days
Of lyric exaltation.

But who is he who gathers dignity
From Labour, which involves man’s misery,
And woman’s degradation ?

“Behold!” my guide exclaimed. I looked
and saw

A portly person with prognathous jaw,

And lips like purple lizards. [gold,

A thing that seemed to reek of greed and
With fat fast-clutching hands, and eyes as
As caste, or arctic blizzards. [cold

He lolled upon a velvet-cushioned couch,

His bulk agleam with glittering gem and ouch;

Watching his breast’s upheaval,

For all his shape of man, and sheen of gold,
Methought that so the saurian might have
rolled

Swine-like in slime primaeval.

“ A Lord of Modern London ! ” laughed my
guide,

“ A civic prince, a thing of pomp and pride,
A magnate of the City,

Possessed of power and popular repute;

A self-made hero, and a selfish brute
Barren of human pity.

“The Dagon-idol of a moneyed mob.

Life’s secret, friend, is knowing how to rob.

A solemn unction hallows
Accepted styles, they ’re secret, and succeed,
Whereas unfashionable systems lead
To prison or the gallows.”

I watched the creature nodding o’er his wine,
His solitude seemed filled with dreams divine.

See ! they take shape before us.

Rank grovels, Beauty bows to such success,
Loud in his praise the platform and the
Chant an ecstatic chorus. [press

And there in the dream’s background pallid,
dumb,

1 see those huddled spectres of the slum,

Grim phantoms cold, intrusive.