When the Show was opened, The crowds at once were thick; Wasn’t it a pretty sound To hear the turnstiles click? The people in the gardens still Are sampling cream and honey; But we to the Pavilion Bear the bags of money! _Truth._ December, 1884. ―――― Sing a song of Jingo (Chorus, fife and drum), Twenty thousand Arabs Sent to kingdom come. When the trouble’s over, And glory’s cup is full, There’ll be a pretty butcher’s bill To lay before John Bull. Bondholders in the City Are passing sleepless nights, The Arabs in the Soudan Are fighting for their rights. The whole affair’s a muddle That daily thicker grows, Why we e’er went into it Is what nobody knows. H. B. ―――― Sing a song of dynamite―― What a mighty scare! A London railway-station In pieces in the air. Bags and pistols, clockwork, Nasty cakes of brown―― Weren’t they dainty dishes To find about our town? Government and railway folks Didn’t think it funny; They to find the plotters Offered lots of money. Perhaps across the sea they’ve gone, In other suits of clothes; Perhaps they’re living quietly Right under London’s nose. JANE JONES. _The Weekly Dispatch._ April 13, 1884. ―――― Sing a song of eightpence, Income tax is high; Four and twenty blunders In a Gladstone pie; When the pie is opened Won’t there be a shout, When two dozen blunders All come flying out. Gladstone’s in the Treasury, Counting coin in lumps; The Queen is in her castle―― Her people in the dumps. _Judy._ May 13, 1885. ―――― THE JUBILEE COINAGE. Sing a song of sixpence, they struck it all awry, “Four” and “twenty” pieces, too, were faked in the die; When the dies were opened the folks began to sing, “Why, there ain’t a money value set on this ’ere thing.” The bankers in their parlours were laughing at the money; The Queen looked at her portrait and thought it very funny; The G.O.M. at Hawarden said, sniffling through his nose, “When I was Master of the Mint we made no coins like those.” DARJEW. _The Weekly Dispatch._ October 2, 1887. ―――― Sing a song of sixpence, a packetful of news, Just a dozen wordlets all that you must use. When the packet’s open’d, the news begins to ring, A birth, a death, a dainty dish of gossip doth it bring. The husband’s in his counting-house losing all his money, The wife is in the pantry eating bread and honey; The daughter’s in the garden, undreaming of the news, When “rat-tat” comes a telegram――they’re shaking in their shoes.