THE GULL.
Oh, the London Gull is a curious bird,
He'll believe of an omnibus cad the word;
And if for Brixton he is bound,
In a Chelsea bus he will be found,
Oh, the rare old Gull, with a rare old quill,
For a rare old friend will accept a bill;
And, it's rather superfluous to say
That the Gull the bill will have to pay.
The Gull, to free him from human ills,
Will gulp down boxes of Holloway's pills;
And will rub his hair three times a-day
With stuff to prevent it from turning grey.
He is right; for, to give the stuff its due,
It turns the hair not grey but blue.
Oh, the Gull, in the course of his ev'ning walk,
When he sees a fellow with face of chalk,
Standing beneath a gas-light's glare,
And looking the picture of meek despair,
With a well-brush'd coat of rusty black,
A child in each hand and three at his back,
With pinafores clean, and little white caps,
Will give the scoundrel sixpence, perhaps.
For the Gull don't know that the pallid cheek
Is cleverly lin'd with the whitening's streak;
And the Gull is equally blind to the fact
That the children have all maturity's tact
In assuming the looks of want and woe—
That, in fact, their business well they know.
The Gull will often go to the play,
Where for the dress-circle he'll blandly pay,
And will credit the boxkeeper's whisper low,
That the places are taken in every row;
But he thinks one vacancy he may find
If the Gull to fee him should feel inclin'd.
When, of course, the obliging Gull is willing
To pay the myrmidon a shilling;
And finds himself, when the evening's gone,
In a front seat sitting all alone.
For, strange is the fact, that all who pay
For taking front seats remain away.
Oh, the fine old Gull, when the fact he reads
Of a tradesman who twenty sovereigns needs,
And thrice the security offers to lodge,
Is instantly caught by the rare old dodge,
And lends the sum on an—I O U,
With a pawnbroker's duplicate or two.
But the twenty pounds, when he comes to claim,
He finds how worthless the tradesman's name;
And when with the duplicates off he goes
To the pawnbroker's shop, they the fact disclose,
That the documents all are forged—odd zounds!
By the tradesman who wanted the twenty pounds.
And of everything making a similar mull,
Quite ruin'd at last is the rare old Gull.
THE DOMESTIC SERVANTS' EARLY CLOSING
MOVEMENT.
A great domestic movement is in agitation, which, it is expected, will convulse the social fabric from the area upwards, and shake our households, not only to their centres, but to the very top of our chimney-pots, our weathercocks, and our cowls. The contemplated measure is a demand on the part of our domestic servants for a general early closing of all private houses at eight o'clock, so that after that hour the cooks, housemaids, nursery-maids, and others in our establishments may go forth in search of moral and intellectual recreation in the open air. It is argued, and with a considerable show of justice, that after cooking our dinners, and washing up our tea-things, the female servant has a right to go and get her mind cultivated, and her tastes elevated, or, as it were, put in soak in the fountain of the Muses, to be rinsed, and send forth its gushings when fitting opportunity might offer.
The Domestic Early Closing Movement will entail on the masters the necessity of limiting their wants, and allowing none to extend beyond eight P.M., which it is contended will be found quite long enough for all reasonable purposes.
The moral and intellectual training will generally be commenced by the policeman on the beat, but as boldness increases, the domestic servant may venture to improve her mind at some of the harmonic meetings in the neighbourhood of her master's residence. Adjacent barracks will be particularly sought after for the culture which it is the object of the Female Servants' Early Closing Movement to obtain.