The well-deserved rebuke administered to "van-demons," "persons whose only notion of enjoyment consists in getting drunk, and then howling songs and playing horns as they drive homeward from their drinking-bout," can be paralleled from the protests repeatedly uttered in 1920 against the char-à-banc nuisance with its attendant "bellowing and braying." But a much more combative note is struck in the verses on the tendency to kow-tow to the working man published in 1872, at a time when the rise in prices, especially in that of coal, and the hardships of the middle classes and the small income-tax payer coincided with unusual prosperity among the working classes and particularly amongst the miners:—
"WHY SHOULD THE POOR BE FLATTERED?"
Hamlet, Act v., Sc. 1.
"Why should the Poor be flattered?"
Art foolish, Hamlet, trow?
All else are torn and tattered,
None else are flattered now.
Your Clown, our race accusing,
Declared our wits astray:
We beat him at abusing