So come young gents and dont be slow,
But stylish dwess and each day go,
And view the beauties to and fwo,
Who dwive and wide wound Wotten Wow.
The chief merit in the singing of this song to the audience—was the affected lisp and farcical airs of the singer, who did his best to imitate the swells who lean over the railings in Rotten Row, when that fashionable drive is crowded with equestrians and foot passengers in the regular London season. The mob liked the satire on the aristocrats and relished all the local hits of the speech and the dress of the ideal do-nothing. Something of a more grotesque nature, and more broadly funny, which was cheered to the echo, was a nonsensical song called the "Royal Beast Show," that seemed to please the men and women in the audience. This song was sung by a man in a blood-red scarf, a pea-green body coat, and green glass goggles. The costume was indicative of nothing under heaven or earth that I ever saw before, but the song was exactly suited to the comprehension of the people, as their shouts of laughter testified:
THE ROYAL BEAST SHOW.
Come, stand aside, good people all, and hear vot I've got to say,
But let the little dears come hup, wot's going for to pay.
At all the coorts in Europe, we are reckoned quite the go:
Then pay yer sixpences, and see the Royal Wild Beast Show.
Chorus.
The cammomiles, the crockodiles, and all that you could wish;
The mice and rats, and tabby cats, and other kinds of fish;
A dozen sphinxes hupside down and standing hin a row;
Hits only sixpence heach to see the Royal Wild Beast Show.
The first one is the Kangaroo, you ought to see him jump;
The next one is the Ippopotymus, you ought to see 'is hump;
The third one is the Halligator, and he's such a one to crow,
He wakes hus hevery morning in the Royal Wild Beast Show.
The Donkey in the corner, with the Tiger hon 'is harm,
Comes from Hass-iriya, vere once his father kept a farm;
That Billy-Goat that's dressed in Pink and valking rayther slow,
He's wery Horn-imental in a Royal Wild Beast show.
The cammomiles, &c.
After these choice ballads had been sung, there was a ballet in which about fifty young ladies capered and pranced in a Bower of Angels, with a lot of dolphins, just like dolphins and angels in their mutual festivities in the other world: and then the detective who accompanied me, said:
"Would you like to see the Canteen? That's a werry 'igh old game is the Canteen; sort of priveet like."