So, gentle critics, you would have me tilt, Not at the guilty, only just at Guilt!-- Spare the offender and condemn Offense, And make life miserable to Pretense! "Whip Vice and Folly--that is satire's use-- But be not personal, for _that's_ abuse; Nor e'er forget what, 'like a razor keen, Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen.'" Well, friends, I venture, destitute of awe, To think that razor but an old, old saw, A trifle rusty; and a wound, I'm sure, That's felt not, seen not, one can well endure. Go to! go to!--you're as unfitted quite To give advice to writers as to write. I find in Folly and in Vice a lack Of head to hit, and for the lash no back; Whilst Pixley has a pow that's easy struck, And though good Deacon Fitch (a Fitch for luck!) Has none, yet, lest he go entirely free, God gave to him a corn, a heel to me. He, also, sets his face (so like a flint The wonder grows that Pickering doesn't skin't) With cold austerity, against these wars On scamps--'tis Scampery that _he_ abhors! Behold advance in dignity and state-- Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great-- Stanford, philanthropist! One hand bestows In alms what t'other one as justice owes. Rascality attends him like a shade, But closes, woundless, o'er my baffled blade, Its limbs unsevered, spirit undismayed. Faith! I'm for something can be made to feel, If, like Pelides, only in the heel. The fellow's self invites assault; his crimes Will each bear killing twenty thousand times! Anon Creed Haymond--but the list is long Of names to point the moral of my song. Rogues, fools, impostors, sycophants, they rise, They foul the earth and horrify the skies-- With Mr. Huntington (sole honest man In all the reek of that rapscallion clan) Denouncing Theft as hard as e'er he can! THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC MORALS The Senate met in Sacramento city; On public morals it had no committee Though greatly these abounded. Soon the quiet Was broken by the Senators in riot. Now, at the end of their contagious quarrels, There's a committee but no public morals. CALIFORNIA [The Chinaman's Assailant was allowed to walk quietly away, although the street was filled with pedestrians.--_Newspaper_.] Why should he not have been allowed To thread with peaceful feet the crowd Which filled that Christian street? The Decalogue he had observed, From Faith in Jesus had not swerved, And scorning pious platitudes, He saw in the Beatitudes A lamp to guide his feet. He knew that Jonah downed the whale And made no bones of it. The tale That Ananias told He swore was true. He had no doubt That Daniel laid the lions out. In short, he had all holiness, All meekness and all lowliness, And was with saints enrolled. 'Tis true, some slight excess of zeal Sincerely to promote the weal Of this most Christian state Had moved him rudely to divide The queue that was a pagan's pride, And in addition certify The Faith by making fur to fly From pelt as well as pate?