[Comes a cropper himself.
THE MEETING OF THE WATER-RATEPAYERS.
["The New Town Hall in Mare Street, Hackney, was altogether too small to hold the crowds who came last night (August 1) to protest against the action of the East London Water Company in cutting down the supply of water during the past few weeks."—Evening News.]
Air—"The Meeting of the Waters."
There is not in the whole land a meeting so meet
As that of the ratepayers held at Mare Street.
No mare's nest they'd found, no, the Hackneyite heart
Was hot at the new Water Company start!
It was not that Nature had stinted supply;
That Monopolist pretext appears "all my eye."
'Twas not summer parching of river and rill,
Oh! no—it was something more troublesome still.
'Twas that greed and neglect had combined, it is clear,
To make East End water deficient and dear;
And Monopoly now the supply must improve,
Or more than mere Mare Streets will be on the move.
Big Monopolist Mammon, how calm could you rest
With your dividends high in the way you love best;
But when water runs short, and diseases increase,
The East End won't leave you and your Water at peace.