A LICENCE FOR LORDS.
[At the Blackheath Petty Sessions, Mr. LAWLESS, stated that the Trafalgar Hotel, belonged to the Lords of the Admiralty, and asked the Bench to transfer the licence to the resident caretaker.
Captain ROBERTSON-SHERSBY, J.P.: Why not transfer it to the First Lord of the Admiralty? Are there no whitebait dinners held there?
Mr. LAWLESS said that he was afraid that the days of whitebait dinners were over.
The Bench, finding the Admiralty held the hotel for charitable purposes, granted the application.]
Come, landsmen, give ear to my ditty,
I'll make it as short as I can.
There was once—was it London?—a city
Which stretched from Beersheba to Dan.
Of course that is gammon and spinach,
Or, to put it correctly, a joke.
It extended from Richmond to Greenwich,
This city of darkness and smoke.
It had sailors who ruled o'er the ocean,
And sat all the day upon Boards,
And described, with delightful emotion,
Themselves and their colleagues as "Lords."
They had tubes that were always exploding,
And boilers that never were right,
But had all got a trick of exploding,
And blowing a crew out of sight.
They had docks (and, alas! they had dockers),
They had ships that kept sinking like stones,
Which resulted in filling the lockers
Provided below by D. JONES.
Of their country these lineal successors
Of NELSON deserved very well,
When at last they became the possessors
Of an old fully-licensed hotel.
And they made up a case which was flawless,
For the Sessions that sat at Blackheath,
And they sent—which was strange—Mr. LAWLESS,
Who was crammed full of law to the teeth.
"The days when we all lived in clover,
With whitebait, can never revive,
I assure you," said LAWLESS, "they're over,
But, oh, keep the licence alive."
But the Bench, when they heard him, grew bolder—
"Make it out to George Hamilton—he
Is the man who should figure as holder,"
Said ROBERTSON-SHERSBY, J.P.
Just to think of the head of the Navy,
The proudest and strongest afloat,
Cutting joints or distributing gravy,
First Lord of his own table d'hôte!
Will their Charity be a beginner
At home? Will they dine there each day,
These Lords, on a succulent dinner,
Free, gratis, and nothing to pay?
Well, well, though we'd rather prefer ships
That burst not, we'll take what they give.
So we offer our thanks to their Worships
For permitting the licence to live.
