"EVICTED TENANTS."
["It is impracticable to proceed in the present Session with some of the great measures to which the Government is pledged, such, for example, as that relating to the Church in Wales, the Registration Bill, and the Local Veto Bill."—Sir William Harcourt.
Little Local Veto, loquitur:—
Oh, exactly! Just what I expected! And after such volumes of talk!
My prospects you told me were brilliant, and here it all ends—in a baulk!
O, won't I just work up Sir Wilfrid, and won't I just wake Mister Caine?
But there, you can't trust anybody, these times, that's exceedingly plain.
And you too, my own bringer-up, to turn me out of house and of home!
Oho, you unnatural parent! And where shall we wanderers roam—
Poor Taffy, and young (Registration) Bill—look at him limping!—and Me?
And the other ones tucked up inside, and especially that impudent Three,
The Irish, the Scotch, and the London boys, whom you so favour and pet,
Are laughing at us from the window. But, drat them, their turn may come yet.
They may have to turn out, after all! Billy Budget of course is all right,
For you fought for your favourite che-ild, and, by Jingo, it has been a fight!
But what have I done to be rounded on? Call yourself boss of the place?
Why, the Bartleys, and Bowleses, and Boltons and Byrnes simply laugh in your face!
What use to be landlord at all if you can't choose your tenants? Oh my!
That odious Bung—one more B!—has the laugh of me still! I could cry—
But I won't. I will kick! I'm not meek, like those other two poor little Bills;
Look, how limp and dejected they go, though against their poor dear little wills!
But I am not going to be put upon. I'll make it awkward all round.
You won't treat me so any more; you won't "chuck" me again, I'll be bound.
And what Compensation have I, for Disturbance? Eh! what's that you say?
"All right?"—"Reinstatement—next year?"—"Pass away, my dears, please, pass away?"—
Ah! it's all very fine to look pleasant and promise fair things—at the door;
But that's regular constable blarney, old boy, and you've done it before!
Meanwhile we're Evicted, worse luck! like the poor Irish Tenants whose case
Those busy B's muster to fight over. Ah! you put on a bold face,
But we ain't the only Pill Garlics! No; some of 'em still left inside
Will yet join us, out in the cold, as will p'raps be a pill to their pride!
[Exit with other Bills.
The Colonel and the Quiver.—Our own Colonel Saunderson, M.P., was never better at his best than when, in the debate last Thursday night, he said, "If the Bill passes, a quiver of horror will run through every tenant, &c., &c." Of course the gallant Colonel meant "arrow" or "dart," not "quiver." A dart or an arrow will run through a person, piercing him in front, and reappearing at back. But "quiver" doesn't do this sort of thing. An arrow so transfixing a body may make it quiver—but this is another matter. More power to the quivering elbow of the gallant Colonel!