ALICE IN BLUNDERLAND.
(On the Ninth of November.)
["Our difficulties are such as these—that America has instituted a vast system of prohibitive tariffs, mainly, I believe, because ... American pigs do not receive proper treatment at the hands of Europe.... If we have any difficulty with our good neighbours in France, it is because of that unintelligent animal the lobster; and if we have any difficulty with our good neighbours in America, it is because of that not very much nobler animal, the seal."—Lord Salisbury at the Mansion House.]
The Real Turtle sang this, very slowly, and sadly:—
"We are getting quite important," said the Porker to the Seal,
"For we're 'European Questions,' as a Premier seems to feel.
See the 'unintelligent' Lobster, even he, makes an advance!
Oh, we lead the Politicians of the earth a pretty dance.
Will you, won't you, Yankee Doodle, England, and gay France.
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, let us lead the dance?
"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be,
When they take us up as matters of the High Diplomacee."
But the Seal replied, "They brain us!" and he gave a look askance
At the goggle-eyed mailed Lobster, who was loved (and boiled) by France.
"Would they, could they, would they, could they, give us half a chance?
Lobsters, Pigs, and Seals all suffer, Commerce to advance!"
"What matters it how grand we are!" his plated friend replied,
If our destiny is Salad, or the Sausage boiled or fried?
Though we breed strife 'twixt England, and America, and France,
If we're chopped up, or boiled, or brained where is our great advance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you chuck away a chance
Of peace in pig-stye, or at sea, to play the game of France?"
"Thank you, it's a very amusing dance—to watch," said ALICE, feeling very glad that she had not to stand up in it.
"You may not have lived much under the Sea" (said the Real Turtle) ("I haven't," said ALICE), "and perhaps you were never introduced to a Lobster—" (ALICE began to say "I once tasted—" but checked herself hastily, and said, "No, never"),—"So you can have no idea what a delightful dance a (Diplomatic) Lobster Quadrille is!"
"I dare say not," said ALICE.
"Stand up and repeat ''Tis the Voice of the Premier,'" said the Griffin.
ALICE got up and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of Lobsters, Pigs, and Seals, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:—
"'Tis the voice of the Premier; I heard him complain
On the Ninth of November all prophecy's vain.
I must make some sort of a speech, I suppose.
Dear DIZZY (who led the whole world by the nose)
Said the world heard, for once, on this day, 'Truth and Sense'
(I.e. neatly phrased Make-believe and Pretence),
But when GLADDY's 'tide' rises, and lost seats abound,
One's voice has a cautious and timorous sound."
"I've heard this sort of thing so often before," said the Real Turtle; "but it sounds uncommon nonsense. Go on with the next verse."
ALICE did not dare disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:—
"I passed by the Session, and marked, by the way,
How the Lion and Eagles would share Af-ri-ca.
How the peoples, at peace, were not shooting with lead,
But bethumping each other with Tariffs instead,
How the Eight Hours' Bill, on which BURNS was so sweet,
Was (like bye-elections) a snare and a cheat;
How the Lobster, the Pig, and the Seal, I would say
At my sixth Lord Mayor's Banquet—"
"What is the use of repeating all that stuff," the Real Turtle interrupted, "if you don't explain it as you go on? It's by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!"
"Yes, I think you'd better leave off," said the Griffin; and ALICE was only too glad to do so.
GAMES.—It being the season of burglaries, E. WOLF AND SON—("WOLF," most appropriate name,—but Wolf and Moon would have been still better than WOLF AND SON)—take the auspicious time to bring out their new game of "Burglar and Bobbies." On a sort of draught-board, so that both Burglar and Bobby play "on the square," which is in itself a novelty. The thief may be caught in thirteen moves. This won't do. We want him to be caught before he moves at all.
