THE NEW DANCE OF DEATH.
"Starving to make a British holiday"—
And plump his pockets with the gobemouches' pay!
A pretty picture, full of fine humanity
And creditable to the public sanity!
"Sensation" is a most despotic master.
First Higgins and then Succi! Fast and faster
The flood of morbid sentiment rolls on.
Lion-kings die, and the Sword-swallower's gone
The way of all such horrors, slowly slain
By efforts to please curious brutes, for gain.
What next, and next? Stretch some one on the rack
And let him suffer publicly. 'Twill pack
The show with prurient pryers, and draw out
The ready shillings from the rabble rout
Of well-dressed quidnuncs, frivolous and fickle
Who'll pay for aught that their dull sense will tickle.
Look on, crass crowd; your money freely give
To see Sensation's victims die to live;
For Science knows, and says beneath her breath,
That this "Fast Life" (like other sorts) means Death!