Scrub! Scrub! Scrub! The wire-brush never flags; And what's the result? A collar that's rough, And a front that's ever in rags! That frayed-out wristband worries me sore, It catches--and shows--the dirt. And as for the collar!!!--I'll bet you a dollar You've never one _clean_ to your shirt. Oh! but to breathe the breath Of old country linen so sweet, Wherein lavender was spread, Which was dried on the grass at our feet! For only one short week To feel as I used to feel, Before women washed with chloride of lime, And scrubbed with brushes of steel! Oh! but for one short week Of the good old-fashioned wash, Before a laundry meant utter rot, Lime, wax, and such chemical bosh! A little swearing would ease my heart, At that ogress, false, inhuman; So to the papers a line I'll drop, On the Modern Washerwoman! With fingers ready and fleet, With features indignantly red, A poor Clerk wrote of his linen in rags, And this is what he said:-- "Stitch! Stitch! Stitch! Yet _I_ can't keep a decent shirt! The thing has reached an unbearable pitch, So--as an appeal to the poor and the rich-- I sing the new Song of the Shirt!" * * * * * Illustration: EUPHEMISM. _Cab Tout (exasperated by the persistent attentions of Constable)._ "LOOK 'ERE, OLE LIGHTNIN'-KETCHER, W'ERE THE MISSIN' WORD ARE YER SHOVIN' US TO?" * * * * * ROBERT ON THE GREAT QUESTION OF THE DAY. JOLLY old Crismus being cum round agen, as ushal, we had our Crismus-Heve supper, as ushal, and henjoyed owrselves till a rayther latish hour, as ushal. Upon cumpareing notes, we didn't find as we had werry much to complane about, the grand and nobel old wirtue of horsepitality perwailing much as ushal.