Wide-mouth shocking Alligator! I wish you were a Boa Constrictor! And crush within your awful fold, The villains with our pilfered gold, Who, with sanctimonious face, Steal with such a pious grace: They dance and dress and call it good, Because it gives the hungry food. But hold your mirror to their face, And show them their sad black disgrace: One robs the City’s golden coffers, And then a mighty Fabric offers, And tries to court a worldly fame, Out of such an impious shame. The temple thus to science rears, That he may surely soothe his fears, Lest his ignorance should be known, And lack of knowledge shown, And so the starving, suffering poor, He drives them fainting from his door; And tells them: (Oh! how very strange!) The Mansion’s taken all his change! And in his high, majestic wrath, He kicks a female down to earth! The mansion he will never give, While one heir of his shall live. See how this modern Simon Magus, Blinds our eyes, and then deceives us. Soon we shall see how very funny, He’ll make his “Union” yield him money: He finds it is so very pretty, To have a Mayor made of putty, That he can mould him at his will, To make his son an office fill. But lest Columbia prove too new, He lays a wire the ocean through, That he all Europe may invite, To bask in his resplendent sight. Oh! most happy England Queen, When she can say: “I’ve Peter seen!” Now see him cringe, and jump for fame, To reach the scroll, to write his name: But as he lives alone for fame, My verse will sure preserve his name. PETER PIPER PICT. NEW YORK, June 15, 1858. STEPHEN H. BRANCH: