At length the soup-coppers repairs did need, The copper-smith came, and there he seed; A dollop of bones lay grizzling there, In the legs of the breeches the boy did vear; To gain his fill the boy did stoop, And, dreadful to tell, he vos boiled in the soup! And ve all of us say it, and say with a sneer, That he vos pushed in by the overseer! Oh, the poor vorkhouse boy &c. From _The Victoria Minstrel_. Published by JAMES DUFFY, Dublin. ―――― THE FAMILY GHOST. At the Old Manor House and ancestral Hall, Where the ivy climbs over the gable-end wall, A Rookery lends the domain a charm, And the rats and the mice within-door swarm; And, time out of mind, as the talk hath been, There’s a spectral Thing to be heard and seen. O, the Family Ghost! O, the Family Ghost! A sound, as it were, of a rustling train, That sweeps into the chambers, and out again, And anon there appeareth an ancient Dame, Like a figure stept out of a picture-frame, In a stomacher, frill, and farthingale, And her eyes glimmer through an antique lace-veil. O, the Family Ghost! O, the Family Ghost! There’s a room where the Ghost is given to keep So in that one apartment that none dare sleep, No man-servant, maid servant, girl, or groom, Will adventure a night in the Haunted Room. Should the Host any Stranger away there stow, The Ghost of the Family lets him know. O, the Family Ghost! O, the Family Ghost! A something in sooth it may be to boast, That a fellow hath gotten a Family Ghost, For a Family Ghost to a Family Name Is a sort of appurtenance much the same As a coat-of-arms, or a Family Tree; No such Ghost but for persons of pedigree. O, the Family Ghost! O, the Family Ghost! In your stuccoed Villas it scorns to dwell; Stands only the hold of your high-born Swell. It disdains to appear――having too much pride―― To the family circle at Christmastide, Where, if ghost-stories then be but truly told, It could, an it listed, a tale unfold. O, the Family Ghost! O, the Family Ghost! _Punch._ December 29, 1883. ――――:o:―――― HOME, SWEET HOME. By J. HOWARD PAYNE, in the opera of “Clari, the Maid of Milan.”