Be still, and know that the whole nation, Bows down to the Association! [_The Local Ratepayer cowers before them._ And yet this question of the land We own we don't quite understand. Is there no specialist who'll try To make it clear? _Enter_ Mr. JOSEPH ARCH. _He bounds into their midst._ MR. JOSEPH ARCH. Why here am I! You want your intellect to march? [_They express assent._ Then listen all to JOSEPH ARCH. [_They group themselves in attentive positions gracefully about him._ BALLAD. A man may own jewels and gold, A piano, horse, railway shares, A cellar of wine, new or old, A house, and the clothes that he wears. Everything he may sell, or may buy, That is purchased by wealth or by toil; But he mustn't own--no matter why-- A single square yard of the soil. He this who from HODGE, its true owner, perverts, Is a brigand, and merits a brigand's deserts! This park that around you you see, These gardens you so much admire, Each hedgerow, each copse, every tree, Is the owner's bequeathed from his sire. He may have remitted his rents! What of that till the Nation cries "Quits!" His land, with the march of events, Being purloined and cut up into bits? For until to its true owner, HODGE, it reverts,-- He's a brigand, and merits a brigand's deserts! [_At the conclusion of the ballad_ Mr. JOSEPH ARCH _gives a signal and the_ OWNER OF THE PROPERTY _is led on in the custody of Trade-Union Myrmidons_. CHORUS. Rob him! fleece him! gag him! seize him! Drive him from his country place. Of his right of tenure ease him; Call him "Brigand" to his face! OWNER OF THE PROPERTY (_recitative_). Oh, outrage horrible And entirely unsatisfactory, Thus to fasten with salutations Eminently unpalatable On the defenceless monied one of the County! Know ye not that my venerated sire, A Soap-boiler successful in his line of business Beyond his wildest visions, Purchased for eighty thousand pounds sterling, These acres, as an investment Speculative and commercial. Say, then, is it reasonable that I, His hopeful heir and offspring, Should be defrauded of what, At present prices agricultural, Is but a return dim and disappointing On his original outlay. Why call me "Brigand"? Tell me why? MR. JOSEPH ARCH (_con fuoco_). Your father had no right to buy, And, as the land to HODGE is due, We take it thus by force from you! _A Crowd of Radical Land Reformers rush in, and seizing on the property, hew down the timber, cut away the brushwood, and parcel it out into small allotments._ OWNER OF THE PROPERTY (_con animo_). And is there for no compensation room? Mr. JOSEPH ARCH. No! none! And now, behold the Brigand's doom!