Gorgon or Demogorgon! "Dreaded name!"[B] Yet dread of thee were but disastrous shame. Fear is thy hope, and, fronting thee, to _fear_, Is but to court disaster and disfame. Thou crawling horror of the coward soul! Thy snaking convolutions furtive roll. To track thy trail, to face thy stony glare, And smite and slay is general duty's goal. Civilisation armed with trenchant Law Must play the Perseus with thy monster maw, And all mankind be banded in the quest Of the worst enemy mankind e'er saw. The massacre of innocents, the blind Blasting of the best hopes of humankind; Hate's indiscriminate earthquake, letting loose Of all the fiends of blood, and fire, and wind: Sheer wreck of hearth and altar, home and State, Rending of reverenced ties, love desolate, Order submerged; these are the Gorgon's hopes, Which Law must frustrate ere 'tis all too late. Smite Perseus! Wield the unhesitating brand With steadfast heart and with unfaltering hand; And from the grosser Gorgon of our day Free, in Humanity's cause, each harried land! [Footnote A: "_Hostis humani generis._"] [Footnote B: "The dreaded name of Demogorgon." _Paradise Lost._] * * * * * AN ADVERTISER'S APPEAL. ["Mr. CAINE (who advocates prohibiting open-air advertisements in rural places) forgets that a good many people are unable to see that an advertisement of soap and pills mars the beauty of a landscape."--_Illustrated News._] Oh, Mister CAINE--not Sugar-CAINE, but bitter 'Gainst alcohol and opium and field-signs-- Why put poor Advertisers in a twitter By laying thus hard legislative lines In the defence of merely pastoral Beauty, By levying on Field-Signs a fine or duty? Good gracious! what _are_ meadows, rocks and trees Compared with the necessity--_absolute_, Sir!-- Of advertising Silks and Soaps and Teas, POPKINS'S Pickles, BOODLE'S Bottled Fruit, Sir? Or how should he King Mammon's heavy hand 'scape Who'd sacrifice great £ _s. d._ to--Landscape? A Nuisance? Nonsense!!! Posters and Placards, In field or forest, serve the Public better Than all the blatant bosh of bleating bards. The Advertising Art would you thus fetter? What _is_ the worth of rivers, rooks, and hills Compared with SMUGSON'S Soaps and PODGER'S Pills? Soap, Sir, means Cleanliness, and Pills mean Health; And Sanitation's surely more than Scenery! Subordinate the claims of Health--and Wealth-- To sentimental love of rural greenery? No, Mister CAINE. I wonder _you're_ not wiser, Pan is at present the great Advertiser! * * * * * [Illustration: THE MODERN MEDUSA.] * * * * * NEW LIGHTS FOR OLD.