Produced by Hagay Giller, Malcolm Farmer, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 147. July 1, 1914. [Illustration] * * * * * [Illustration] * * * * * PROGRESS. ["Giving evidence recently before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, Miss C. E. Collet, of the Home Office, said the commercial laundry was killing the small hand laundry."--_Evening News._] The little crafts! How soon they die! In cottage doors no shuttle clicks; The hand-loom has been ousted by A large concern with lots more sticks. The throb of pistons beats around; Great chimneys rise on Thames's banks; The same phenomena are found In Sheffield. (Yorks) and Oldham (Lancs). No longer now the housewife makes Her rare preserves, for what's the good? The factory round the corner fakes Raspberry jam with chips of wood. 'Tis so with what we eat and wear, Our bread, the boots wherein we splosh 'Tis so with what I deemed most fair, Most virginal of all--the Wash. 'Tis this that chiefly, when I chant, Fulfils my breast with sighs of ruth, To think that engines can supplant The Amazons I loved in youth. That not with tender care, as erst By spinster females fancy-free, These button-holes of mine get burst Before the shift comes back to me; That mere machines, and not a maid With fingers fatuously plied, The collars and the cuffs have frayed That still excoriate my hide; That steam reduces to such states What once was marred by human skill; That socks are sundered from their mates By means of an electric mill; That not by Cupid's coy advance (Some crone conniving at the fraud), But simply by mechanic chance, I get this handkerchief marked "Maud." This is, indeed, a striking change; I sometimes wonder if the world Gets better as the skies grow strange With coils of smoke about them curled. If the old days were not the best Ere printed formulas conveyed Sorrow about that silken vest For all eternity mislaid; Ere yet the unwieldy motor-van Came clattering round the kerbstone's brink, Its driver dreaming some new plan To make my mauve pyjamas shrink. Evoe. * * * * * THE ENCHANTED CASTLE.