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You thought it, I'll be bound, To saddle hup a three-pound debt, With two-and-twenty pound.

Good sport it is to you,

To grind the honest pore;

To pay their just or unjust debts

With eight hundred per cent. for Lor;

Make haste and git your costes in,

They will not last much mor!

Come down from that tribewn,
Thou Shameless and Unjust;
Thou Swindle, picking pockets in
The name of Truth august;
Come down, thou hoary Blasphemy.
For die thou shalt and must.

And go it, Jacob Homnium,
And ply your iron pen,
And rise up Sir John Jervis,
And shut me up that den;
That sty for fattening lawyers in,
On the bones of honest men.

PLEACEMAN X.

THE SPECULATORS.

THE night was stormy and dark, The town was shut up in sleep: Only those were abroad who were out on a lark, Or those who'd no beds to keep.

I pass'd through the lonely street, The wind did sing and blow; I could hear the policeman's feet Clapping to and fro.

There stood a potato-man In the midst of all the wet; He stood with his 'tato-can In the lonely Haymarket.

Two gents of dismal mien, And dank and greasy rags, Came out of a shop for gin, Swaggering over the flags:

Swaggering over the stones, These shabby bucks did walk; And I went and followed those seedy ones, And listened to their talk.

Was I sober or awake? Could I believe my ears? Those dismal beggars spake Of nothing but railroad shares.

I wondered more and more: Says one- Good friend of mine, How many shares have you wrote for? In the Diddlesex Junction line ? "

"I wrote for twenty," says Jim, "But they wouldn't give me one;" His comrade straight rebuked him For the folly he had done:

"O Jim, you are unawares Of the ways of this bad town; I always write for five hundred shares, And then they put me

down."

"And yet you got no shares," Says Jim, "for all your boast; " "I would have wrote," says Jack, "but where Was the penny to pay the post?"

"I lost, for I couldn't pay That first instalment up; But here's taters smoking hot-I say Let's stop my boy and sup."

And at this simple feast The while they did regale, I drew each ragged capitalist Down on my left thumb-nail.

Their talk did me perplex, All night I tumbled and tost, And thought of railroad specs., And how money was won and lost.

I said, "and the world's
In Italy, Ireland, France;
And every rogue has a

"Bless railroads everywhere," advance; Bless every railroad share For never a beggar need now despair, chance."

THE LAMENTABLE BALLAD OF THE FOUNDLING

OF SHOREDITCH.

COME all ye Christian people, and listen to my tail,
It is all about a doctor was travelling by the rail,

By the Heastern Counties Railway (vich the shares I don't desire),
From Ixworth town in Suffolk, vich his name did not transpire.

A travelling from Bury this Doctor was employed

With a gentleman, a friend of his, vich his name was Captain Loyd, Aud on reaching Marks Tey Station, that is next beyond Colchest-er, a lady entered into them most elegantly dressed.

She entered into the Carriage all with a tottering step,
And a pooty little Bayby upon her bussum slep;
The gentlemen received her with kindness and siwillaty,
Pitying this lady for her illness and debillaty.

She had a fust class ticket, this lovely lady said,
Because it was so lonesome she took a secknd instead.
Better to travel by secknd class, than sit alone in the fust,
And the pooty little Baby upon her breast she nust.

A seein of her cryin, and shiverin and pail,
To her spoke this surging, the Ero of my tail;
Saysee you look unwell, Ma'am, I'll elp you if I can,
And

you may tell your case to me, for I 'm a meddicle man.

"Thank you, Sir," the lady said, "I only look so pale,
Because I ain't accustom'd to travelling on the Rale;
I shall be better presnly, when I've ad some rest:
And that pooty little Baby she squeeged it to her breast.

So in conwersation the journey they beguiled,

Capting Loyd and the medical man, and the lady and the child, Till the warious stations along the line was passed,

For even the Heastern Counties' trains must come in at last.

When at Shoreditch tumminus at lenth stopped the train,
This kind meddicle gentleman proposed his aid again.
"Thank you, Sir," the lady said, "for your kyindness dear;
My carridge and my osses is probbibly come here.

Will you old this baby, please, vilst I step and see?"
The Doctor was a famly man : "That I will," says he.
Then the little child she kist, kist it very gently,
Vich was sucking his little fist, sleeping innocently.

With a sigh from her art, as though she would have bust it,
Then she gave the Doctor the child-wery kind he nust it :
Hup then the lady jumped hoff the bench she sate from,
Tumbled down the carridge steps and ran along the platform.

Vile hall the other passengers vent upon their vays,
The Capting and the Doctor sate there in a maze;
Some vent in a Homminibus, some vent in a Cabby,
The Capting and the Doctor vaited vith the babby.

There they sate looking queer, for an hour or more,
But their feller passinger neather on 'em sore:
Never, never, back again did that lady come
To that pooty sleeping Hinfnt a suckin of his Thum!

What could this pore Doctor do, bein treated thus,
When the darling Baby woke, cryin for its nuss?

Off he drove to a female friend, vich she was both kind and mild,
And igsplained to her the circumstance of this year little child.

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