Verse and Worse

The Baby's Baedeker and Perverted Proverbs have been published in America by Mr. R. H. Russell and Messrs. Harper Bros. of New York.
'The Ballad of Ping-pong,' 'Bill,' and 'The Place where the Old Cleek Broke,' have appeared in The Century Magazine , The Outlook , and Golf respectively.
'Uncle Joe,' 'Aunt Eliza,' 'John,' 'The Cat,' and 'Bluebeard,' were included in Mr. Russell's American edition of Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes .


With guilty, conscience-stricken tears, I offer up these rhymes of mine To children of maturer years (From Seventeen to Ninety-nine). A special solace may they be In days of second infancy.
The frenzied mother who observes This volume in her offspring's hand, And trembles for the darling's nerves, Must please to clearly understand, If baby suffers by and by The Publisher's at fault, not I !
But should the little brat survive, And fatten on this style of Rhyme, To raise a Heartless Home and thrive Through a successful life of crime, The Publisher would have you see That I am to be thanked, not he !
Fond parent, you whose children are Of tender age (from two to eight), Pray keep this little volume far From reach of such, and relegate My verses to an upper shelf; Where you may study them yourself.

The Press may pass my Verses by With sentiments of indignation, And say, like Greeks of old, that I Corrupt the Youthful Generation; I am unmoved by taunts like these— (And so, I think, was Socrates).
Howe'er the Critics may revile, I pick no journalistic quarrels, Quite realising that my Style Makes up for any lack of Morals; For which I feel no shred of shame— (And Byron would have felt the same).