E-text prepared by Neville Allen, Malcolm Farmer, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 33717-h.htm or 33717-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/33717/pg33717-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33717/33717-h.zip) PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI VOLUME 93. SEPTEMBER 17, 1887. * * * * * OUR IGNOBLE SELVES. (_Lament by a Reader of "Letters to the Papers."_) [Illustration] OH! bless us and save us! Like men to behave us We Britons once held it our glory; Now Party bids fair to befool and enslave us. We're lost between Liberal and Tory! Some quidnunc inditeth a letter to GLADSTONE, The style of it, "Stand and deliver!" Its speech may be rude, and its tone quite a cad's tone, Its logic may make a man shiver. _Au contraire_ it _may_ be most lucid and modest, In taste and in pertinence equal (Though such a conjunction would be of the oddest), But what, anyhow, is the sequel? Rad papers _all_ cry, "We've once more before us An instance of folly inrushing." Whilst _all_ the Conservative Journals in chorus Declare "it is perfectly crushing!" "Little Pedlington's" snubbed by the Liberal Press, And urged such fool tricks to abandon. Cry Tories, "I guess the Old Man's in a mess, He hasn't a leg left to stand on!" Oh! save us and bless us! The shirt of old Nessus, Was not such a snare to the hero, As poisonous faction. Crass fools we confess us, With sense and with spirit at zero. If thus we comport us like blind sprawling kittens, Or pitiful partisan poodles, 'Twill prove Party makes e'en of freeminded Britons, A race of incontinent noodles! * * * * * "TO TEAPOT BAY AND BACK."