OMEWHERE in Leather Lane—
I wonder that it was not Mincing,
And for this reason most convincing,
That Mr. Brain
Dealt in those well-minced cartridges of meat
Some people like to eat—
However, all such quibbles overstepping,
In Leather Lane he lived; and drove a trade
In porcine sausages, though London made,
Call’d “Epping.”
Right brisk was the demand,
Seldom his goods stay’d long on hand,
For out of all adjacent courts and lanes,
Young Irish ladies and their swains—
Such soups of girls and broths of boys!—
Sought his delicious chains,
Preferr’d to all polonies, saveloys,
And other foreign toys—
The mere chance passengers
Who saw his “sassengers,”
Of sweetness undeniable,
So sleek, so mottled, and so “friable,”
Stepp’d in, forgetting ev’ry other thought,
And bought.
Meanwhile a constant thumping
Was heard, a sort of subterranean chumping—
Incessant was the noise!
But though he had a foreman and assistant,
With all the tools consistent,
(Besides a wife and two fine chopping boys)
His means were not yet vast enough
For chopping fast enough
To meet the call from streets, and lanes, and passages,
For first-chop “sassages.”
However, Mr. Brain
Was none of those dull men and slow,
Who, flying bird-like by a railway train,
Sigh for the heavy mails of long ago;
He did not set his face ‘gainst innovations
For rapid operations,
And therefore in a kind of waking dream
Listen’d to some hot-water sprite that hinted
To have his meat chopp’d, as the Times was printed,
By steam!
Accordingly in happy hour,
A bran-new Engine went to work
Chopping up pounds on pounds of pork
With all the energy of Two-Horse-Power,
And wonderful celerity—
THE JUDGES OF A-SIZE.
