"BUSINESS!"
Sweater (to Mr. Punch). "NO USE YOUR INTERFERING. BUSINESS IS BUSINESS!"
Mr. P. "YES, AND UNCOMMONLY BAD BUSINESS, TOO, FOR THEM. COULDN'T THE LARGE FIRMS TAKE A TRIFLE LESS PROFIT, AND PUT A LITTLE PLEASURE INTO THE BUSINESS OF THESE POOR STARVING WORKERS?"
["Business!" cries the Sweater, when remonstrated with for paying the poor Match-box makers twopence-farthing or twopence-half-penny a gross, whilst his own profits reach 22-1/2 to 25 per cent.—Daily News.]
Punch to the Sweating Shylock.
Eh? "Business is business"? Sheer cant, Sir! Pure gammon?
Of all the inhuman, sham Maxims of Mammon,
This one is the worst,
For under its cover lurks cruelty callous,
With murderous meanness that merits the gallows,
And avarice accurst.
Oh, well, I'm aware, Sir, how ruthless rapacity
Loves to take shelter, with cunning mendacity
'Neath an old saw;
But well says the scribe that such "business" is crime, Sir,
And such would be but for gaps half the time, Sir,
'Twixt justice and law.
Bah! Many a man who's sheer rogue in reality,
Hides the harsh knave in the mask of "legality."
When 'tis too gross,
Robbery's rash, but austere orthodoxies
Countenance such things as modern match-boxes
Nine-farthings a gross!
From seven till ten, and sometimes to eleven,
For "six bob" a week. Ah! such life must be heaven;
Whilst as for your "profit,"
That's bound to approach five-and-twenty per cent.,
That Sweaters shall thrive, let their tools be content
With starvation in Tophet.
To starve's bad enough, but to starve and to work
(Mrs. LABOUCHERE hints), the most patient may irk;
And the lady is right—
Business? On brutes who dare mouth such base trash,
Mr. Punch, who loves justice and sense, lays his lash,
With the greatest delight.
He knows the excuses advanced for the Sweater,
But bad is the best, and, until you find better,
'Tis useless to cant
Of freedom of contract, supply and demand,
And all the cold sophistries ever on hand
Sound sense to supplant.
A phrase takes the place of an argument often.
And stomachs go empty, and brains slowly soften,
And sense sick with dizziness,
All in the name of the bosh men embody
In one clap-trap phrase that dupes many a noddy,
That—business is business!
Business? Yes, precious bad business for them, Sir,
Whose joyless enslavement you take with such phlegm, Sir,
Suppose, to enhance
Their small share of ease, such as you, were content, Sir,
To lower a trifle your precious "per cent.," Sir,
And give them a chance!
