28o STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



We four-in-hand worthies, however desarving, 

 Will have nothing in hand to prevent us from starving, 

 Compell'd by hard treatment our colours to strike. 

 We may shortly turn Chartists and handle the pike. 



Our beavers broad-brimm'd, and our togs out and out, 

 Must, the needful to raise, be soon shov'd up tiie spout ; 

 Our fine, portly forms Avill be meagre as spectres, — 

 So much for these steam and these railroad projectors. 



By Heavens ! 'tis a cruel affair, and the nation 

 In justice are bound to afford compensation ; 

 And, as on the shelf we must shortly be laid. 

 To found an asylum for Cragsmen dscay'd. 



Theie, taking our pint in all brotherly love. 

 We may chafT at the swells and the prads as we druv. 

 While spectators, admiring, exclaim'd with a shout, 

 " We're bless'd if tliat 'ere ain't a spicy turn-out ! " 



And how, as we tied round our necks the silk fogle, 

 The rosy-cheek'd barmaids would tip us the ogle ; 

 And when all was ready tlie ribbons to seize. 

 How slyly the darlings would give us a .squeeze. 



A plague upon Eailways ! the system be blowed ! 

 Grim engineers now are the lords of the road ; 

 And passengers now are conveyed to their goal. 

 Not by steaming of cattle, but steaming of coal. 



'Tis a black, burning shame ! ]\lust our glory be crush'd, 

 And the guard's lively bugle to silence be hush'd ? 

 Oh ! 'tis fit that our wrongs we should freely declaie. 

 For we always look'd out for the thing that was fare. 



Let mourning as gloomy as midnight be spread 

 O'er the Swan vnth Two Kecks and tlie Saracens Head ; 

 Let the Black Bull, in Holborn, be cow'd, and the knell 

 Of glory departed be heard from the Hell. 



