Three cropped heads fresh from the barber’s shears, Three bowls of thin gruel as salt as the sea, Three curses on Parnell, three strong men in tears, “Me boys, ye are marthers to Fradom!” says he. For fools must smart, and victims must weep, And the harder the mattrass the later to sleep, So good-bye to the three in their “pounding.” GOBO. ―――― SECOND PRIZE. Three land agitators went down to the West, Went down to the West, where the storm-clouds rise; Each thought of fair Erin, the land of unrest, And of fair Erin’s children, so poor, so unwise. For times are hard, and harvests are bad, And there’s little to comfort and little to glad, And Famine’s throes impending. Three men spoke up to the Gurteen throng, And they trimmed their words by Home-Rule light; They railed at the landlords, they raved about wrong, And curses came rolling up black as the night, For times are hard, and harvests are bad, And troubles are many, and hearts grow sad, With treason’s woes impending. Three captives lay prisoned in Sligo jail, Away in the West where the sun goes down; And men mutter fiercely, and women bewail, And Erin――poor Erin!――must reap the crop sown, For times are hard and harvests are bad, And famine and treason make misery mad, Despair and death the ending. OBSERVER. _The World_, December 10, 1879. ―――― THE THREE AGITATORS. Three Paddies went spouting away at Gurteen, Away at Gurteen in old Erin’s Isle, Each stormed at the Saxons, their laws and their Queen, And the “boys” their shillaleghs stood twirling the while; For tenants must shoot, and landlords must die, Cold lead is cheap, and the rents are high, So, hurray for the agitation! Three Bobbies came up, and they tapp’d those Pats On the shoulders, just in a friendly way, And they look’d rather sold, as they put on their hats, For the game was up, and it would’nt pay! But tenants must shoot, and landlords must die, Though a dirty Government plays the spy On the Irish agitation! Three martyrs lay lock’d in the Sligo gaol, In the Sligo gaol as the sun went down, And the loafers set up a discordant wail For those whose orations were lost to the town! For tenants must shoot, and landlords must die, And the sooner they’re potted, the sooner we’ll cry Farewell to the agitation! From _Snatches of Song_, by F. B. DOVETON. (Wyman and Sons, London, 1880.) ―――― THE JELLY FISHES.