Dainty lady of fashion, with "dots" of your own,
Bright-eyed and trim-vestured, well-fed and well-grown?
Well, BOBBY'S a cripple, and BESS has a cough,
Which, untended, next winter may "carry her off,"
As her folks in their unrefined diction declare;
They are dying, these children, for food and fresh air,
And their slum is much more like a sewer than a street,
Whilst their food is—not such as your servants would eat;
Were they housed like your horses, or fed like your dogs.
They would think themselves lucky; that's how the world jogs!