Money- the root of evil - dross and stuff! Enough to scour a tribe! Although he to subscribe While he whose fortune was at best a brittle one, Moved by this logic, or appalled, To persons of a certain turn so proper, The money came when called, In silver, gold, and copper, Presents from "friends to blacks," or foes to whites, "Trifles," and "offerings," and "widow's mites," Plump legacies, and yearly benefactions, With other gifts And charitable lifts, Printed in lists and quarterly transactions. An iron kettle. The Dowager Lady Scannel, Rebecca Pope, A bar of soap. Mr. T. Groom, A stable-broom, And Mrs. Grubb, A tub. Great were the sums collected! And great results in consequence expected. At yearly courts, The Blacks, confound them! were as black as ever! Yes! spite of all the water soused aloft, Soda and pearlash, huckaback and sand, And scourers in the office strong and clever, In spite of all the tubbing, rubbing, scrubbing, The Blacks, confound them! were as black as ever! In fact, in his perennial speech, The Chairman owned the Niggers did not bleach, From being washed and soaped, A circumstance he named with grief and pity; For self and the Committee, By persevering in the present way, And scrubbing at the Blacks from day to day, Lulled by this vague assurance, The friends and patrons of the sable tribe And waited, waited on with much endurance Many a stinted widow, pinching mother 1 With income by the tax made somewhat shorter, Only to hear, as every year came round, But, spite of pounds or guineas, Of turning to a neutral tint, The plaguy Negroes and their piccaninnies However, nothing dashed By such repeated failures, or abashed, With hundreds of that class, so kindly credulous, As pointed out by Butler's tact, However, in long hundreds there they were, To hear once more addresses from the Chair, Alas! concluding in the usual strain, That what with everlasting wear and tear, The scrubbing-brushes hadn't got a hairThe brooms mere stumps — would never serve again→→ The soap was gone, the flannels all in shreds, The towels worn to threads, The tubs and pails too shattered to be mended Though thirty thousand pounds had been expended- "In fact, the Negroes were as black as ink, But ere the prospect could be made more sunny- -- -no, - not Į! You have had time-time time enough to try! They WON'T come white! then why-why-why — 66 why-why, More money?" Why!" said the Chairman, with an accent bland, And gentle waving of his dexter hand, "Why must we have more dross, and dirt, and dust, More filthy lucre, in a word more gold The why, sir, very easily is told, Because Humanity declares we must! We've scrubbed the Negroes till we've nearly killed 'em, But still their nigritude offends the sight, ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE. "Close, close your eyes with holy dread, And weave a circle round him thrice; For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise!"- - COLERIDGE "It's very hard them kind of men Won't let a body be."-OLD BALLAD. A WANDERER, Wilson, from my native land, I guess the features: in a line to paint And call the devil over his own coals Those pseudo Privy Councillors of God, Who write down judgments with a pen hard-nibbed; |