England has by her Southern sympathy fairly put a serpent girdle of her treachery around the earth. For further particulars consult the following:
TO JOHN BULL.
Oh don't you remember sweet Ireland, John Bull?
Green Erin beyond the blue sea?
And the patriots there whom you starved, hung, and shot,
Because they desired to be free.
On the lone heather wild, in the dark silent glen,
The peasant still shows you the graves
Of the heroes who fell in the year ninety-eight
And died ere they'd live as your slaves.
And don't you remember your own words, John Bull,
Of the Southern Confed—er—a—cie?
When you said in the Times, that your heart went of course
With a brave race which sought to be free.
Oh what do you think of Old Ireland, John Bull?
There's a race that's as brave as your own,
And one that would like very well to be free,
If you only would let it alone.
And don't you remember great India, John Bull?
With the Sepoys you blew from your guns,
And the insult and murder of Brahmins, John Bull,
For some outrage endured from their sons?
The outrage was proved a black lie, as you know,
A lie, as your own books declare:
Your hell-hounds of Havelocks stirred up the war,
And what business had they to be there?
And don't you remember great China, John Bull,
Where you smeared yourself blacker with sin?
Where the Emperor tried to keep opium out,
And you fought to force opium in?
It was Government opium from India, too,
Which poisons both body and soul;
You have fought against freedom with steel, Johnny Bull;
With the steel and the cord and the bowl.
And do you believe in a God, Johnny Bull,
Or anything after the grave?
Then tell us what waits for the sinner who aids
The tyrant to trample the slave?
I'll not ask if you've faith in a Devil, John Bull:
One might think he were laid on the shelf,
To see you unpunished—but now I believe
That you are the False One himself.
We are indebted to a friend for the following tales of foraging, which are vouched for as authentic:
A company of the Two—th cavalry of volunteers, no matter in what State, were out on a forage, with the usual orders to respect the enemy's property. But coming on a plantation where chickens and turkeys were dallying in the sunshine, the officer in command, tired of pork and plaster-pies, alias hard biscuit, gave the boys leave to club over as many of the 'two-legged things in feathers' as they could conveniently come at. The result was that a good number were despatched, and being tied together by the legs, were slung over the pommel of the saddle of 'Benny,' an old sabreur, who had frontiered it for years, been in more Indian fights than you could shake a stick at, and could tell, if he wanted to, of some high-old-hard times with these same Mdewakantonwar, Wahpekute, Ihanktonwannas, and Minnikanyewazhipu red-skinned fiends.
Returning to camp, as ill luck would have it, they met the colonel of their regiment riding out to a neighboring camp. Just before they met him, in fact when they were nearly up to him, for a curve in the road had hid him from sight till then, the officer in command rode by Benny with the command:
'D—n it, man, why don't you sling those chickens the other side your saddle? The colonel will see them, hanging that way.'
'Can't be done! got fourteen turkeys there on a balance!'
By remarkably good fortune the colonel did not see the chickens, so they and the turkeys were safely smuggled into camp, Benny getting full credit for maintaining the balance of power, when the odds were dead against him.