TRIUMPHANT VULGARITY.
[A writer in The Athenæum, discussing modern songs, observes that in the happy days of the eighteenth century "even the vulgar could not achieve vulgarity; to-day vulgarity is in the air, and only the strongest and most fastidious escape its taint." The accompanying lines are submitted as a modest protest against this sadly undemocratic and obscurantist doctrine.]
In days of old, when writers bold
Betrayed the least disparity
Between their genius and an age
When frankness was a rarity,
An odious word was often heard
From critics void of charity,
Simplicity or clarity,
Or vision or hilarity,
Who used to slate or deprecate
The vices of vulgarity.
But now disdain is wholly slain
By wide familiarity
Which links the unit with his age
In massive solidarity;
No more the word is used or heard,
No, no, we call it charity,
Simplicity or clarity,
Or vision or hilarity,
But never slate or deprecate
The virtues of vulgarity.
An Object Lesson.
"Nothing is so suggestive of a faulty education than a lack of grammar."
—Fiji Paper.
"The Vicar was born in Ireland, and lived there many years, and the problems of the Irish are no difficulty to him."
New Zealand Paper.
That's the man we want over here.