Did you ever! "Well I never! Here's a turning topsy-turvy
Of the good old British principles, for the sake o paupers scurvy:
Paternal Government 's put down (now the rule of Daddy ceases)
By despotism and MAYNE-force, which I take it them police is!
What becomes of our self-government, if the coals we're thus hauled over
By your Farnalls, and such fellows, as lives on the rates in clover?
Chaps as has their salaries paid 'em out o' tour pocket, and mine, Sir,
And yet comes to cheek the guardians, all along o' paupers' whine, Sir.
" Mustn't do this," " Mustn't do that," and " Must do as you 're told," 'tis-
Change the water in the casuals' baths, and try how hot and cold 'tis!
Mustn't shut paupers up at night, without bells, gas, or fuel!
Cocker up with beef-tea and wine them that fights shy o' gruel!
Find Union doctors in quinine, cod-liver oil, et ceterer—
The expensive things we takes ourselves, when we're ill and would be betterer;
Change sick-ward sheets, and dress bed-sores, not trust to pauper nurses:
Bless me! Do they think ratepayers has no bottoms to their purses!
And now they 're kickin' up a row about the casual wards. Sir;
As if casuals had a right to more than dry bread and bare boards, Sir!
As if Boards had any business to be pay in' a night warder.
For the sake of keepin' wagabonds like them in peace and order!
As for them as says misfortin' has druv 'em to sich places,
Boards can't be making rules to meet exceptionable cases:
All casuals is bad 'uns, and them as ain't, to start with,
Is certain, in sich company, to ketch more than they can part with.
Wot 's the use o' spendin' money to improve what's past improvin'?
he police have got enough to do to keep sich varmint movin':
As for lettin' 'em inside the House, at Viixiers's dictation.
It 's the small end of that horful wedge— you know— Centralisation!
And where that comes it's all U. P. with the British Constitootion, Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus, and our glorious Revolootion: Our Westries all go to the wall, Police and Press grow stronger: Englishmen's houses cease to be their castles any longer!
Related Material
- The Poor Law and Workhouses (sitemap)
- The workhouse and poor law in Victorian and earlier art (sitemap)
- Cartoons about Poverty and Starvation in Fun, one of Punch’s Rivals
- Depictions of Bumble, the Parish Beadle from Oliver Twist and other Beadles
Bibliography
“The Pleasantest of Workhouses.” Punch, the London Charivari. (27 January 1866): 34. Hathi Trust Digital Library online version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. Web. 5 June 2020.
Last modified 9 June 2020