Three farmers consulted about their lands―― Each face was sad with a thoughtful frown The profits were _all_ paid to farming “hands”―― The profits were all in the land sunk down! “Three profits!” they cried, “there’s not a doubt Our landlords and we must go without, And ‘Good-bye’ to our old farms owning!” _Funny Folks_, October 18, 1879. ―――― WHEN WE WERE BOYS. _By an Old Boy._ Three lambkins went larking there out in the west,―― Out in the west at the dawn of day; At pulling of knockers they all did their best, And the bobbies looked on in a bobbylike way. For boys will be boys, and bobbies will bob, And when you get cotched you get one on the nob, If you’re out on the spree of a morning. Three lambkins got lagged and were shut up in quod, Twenty-six knockers the bobbies they found. Mr. WOOLRYCH, he said that such conduct was odd, And he mulct each poor lambkin of twenty-one pound; For beaks will be beaks, though boys may be boys. You must grin and must bear, not kick up a noise At the court when you show in the morning. A marquess, a colonel, a captain, and I Forty years gone went out on the spree; To every trick on the cards we were fly, And now of the four alive there’s but me. For night will come and man must die, And we come, to look back half ashamed by and by On what we thought fun in the morning. _Judy_, March 19, 1879. ―――― THE THREE LAND AGITATORS IN IRELAND. The following were selected, from over one hundred parodies sent in to _The World_, as worthy of the first and second prizes:―― FIRST PRIZE. Three rascals went ranting round in the West, Disturbing old Ireland, country and town; “Bedad, it’s the landlords is bastes at the best! And if ever they drive ye for rent, shoot ’em down!” For rogues must rant, and good men must weep, With starvation to earn, and prison to keep, And a cry for Freedom sounding. Three captives sat in the prison drear, And they longed for their pipes as the sun went down; And they sniffed their stale loaves, and they begged for some beer, And they swore at their mattrasses rugged and brown. For rogues who rant in prison must weep, And planks are knotty, and treadmills are steep, Though Freedom’s echoes be sounding.