A SOLILOQUY.
Generous Dealer (examining ring). "He asks Twenty. He thinks he'll get Eighteen. It's worth Sixteen. I'll give Fourteen. He paid Twelve. I'll offer Ten!"
A CRY FROM CHICAGO.
Better fifty years of Europe
Than a cycle of Porkopolis!
Freedom's shackled with a new rope
In Mock-Modesty's metropolis.
Ladies—aye and men—in tights
To Chicago prudes proves shockers;
So they limit wheelman rights
By forbidding—knickerbockers!
Nay, the manly human calf
To these Aldermen's so shocking,
They prohibit—do not laugh!—
All display of—the male—stocking!!
We must don a costume baggy
From the throat unto the ankles;
Something stuffy, chokey, draggy!
Yah! In freemen's hearts it rankles
This restriction. Don't let's heed 'em!
If they bother thus our biking.
Ho! for Battersea and freedom!
Cyclists of Chicago, striking,
Like their sires for Independence,
'Gainst the prigs our wheel-rights blocking,
Claim, in all their old resplendence,
Knicker free and liberal stocking!