SIR AQUARIUS TO THE RESCUE!
Or, The Valiant Knight of the Watering Pot, and the Laidly Dragon of London.
["The Report of the Royal Commission appointed for the purpose of ascertaining whether the sources available within the watersheds of the Thames and Lea are adequate in quantity and quality for the water supply of the metropolis, has been laid upon the table of the House of Commons.... The Commissioners are convinced that much filth of various kinds is discharged unnecessarily and illegally into the rivers.... They insist upon the necessity for frequent inspection by an authority appointed for the purpose.... The treatment of the water after abstraction from the river is a subject to which the Commissioners have devoted a good deal of attention ... they suggest that regulations should be drawn up after competent inquiry, and strictly enforced, the enforcement being entrusted to a Public Water Examiner, who should have the legal right of entry to all the waterworks."—The Times.]
Air—"The Dragon of Wantley."
Old stories tell how Hercules
A dragon slew at Lerna,
With seven heads and fourteen eyes,
To see and well discern-a.
But our Laidly worm, who can wriggle and squirm,
Our health long time hath undone;
And it's oh! for a knight, or some man of might,
To demolish the Dragon of London!
This dragon hath two horrid heads,
For forage and for foison;
The one's all jaw, and devouring maw,
Whilst the other breathes forth poison.
Monopolist Greed is the one, indeed,
Whilst the other means Pollution;
And a hide of iron doth environ
Each scaly convolution.
You've heard, of course, of the Trojan horse;
Well, this Dragon is thrice as big, Sir!
With the mouth of a hog, or a Pollywog,
Or Egyptian Porcupig, Sir!
Like the Snapping Turtle he'll hustle and hurtle,
And gulp like the Gobbling Grampus;
And smite and shock, like the Jabberwock,
Or the Chawsome Catta-Wampus!
On the river's banks he plays his pranks,
An Amphibious Amphisbæna;
By the Thames and the Lea his coils you'll see,
A-stretch—like a concertina.
For the Thames to him, from brim to brim,
Is a sort of a private Pactolus,
In whose sands of gold this Dragon bold
Can roll and wallow—solus!
With one head he grabs L. S. D.
(Like a Nibelungen Treasure),
With t'other, whose breath means disease and death,
He befouls it beyond measure.
And those two heads o'er the watersheds
Of the Thames and Lea do hover,
Till a noxious brewage of slime and sewage
Is the draught of the water-lover.
Where's the "More of More Hall with nothing at all,"
To bring swift retribution,
And put the gag on this two-headed Dragon
Of Greed and of Pollution?
Hurroo! Hooray! Some have had their say
(And their counsels have been various).
But there looms in sight a "peerless knight,"
Which his name is "Sir Aquarius."
This Public Water Examiner,
"With legal right of entry,"
Should right the wrong of this Dragon strong,
And o'er river-rights stand sentry.
More of More Hall was nothing at all
For a balladist to brag on,
Compared with our Knight of the Watering Pot—
If he'll slay our River Dragon!
