42 



But their bank was safe in the barn or the cellar, 

 With the owner for president, cashier and teller, 

 With glorious dividends, however odd it is, 

 As often as any one wanted commodities; 

 And only one diminutive journal, 

 Which couldn't be called exactly diurnal, 

 And which to suit the tastes of good breeding, 

 Didn't give so much news as sensible reading: 

 For after all this puffing and blowing, 

 How very essential it is to be knowing 

 Each little event that disgraces the times — 

 The robberies, murders and similar crimes, 

 The stabbings and fights, the rapes and abortions, 

 The burglars and pirates, the thousand distortions, 

 The duels and cheats, the political squibs, 

 Which sometimes are true and sometimes are fibs; 

 It isn't the most important of matters, 

 How much of such ink an editor spatters. 



By the way, (excuse me, I mean not to swear,) 



We haven't a great many minutes to spare, 



For traveling back in our forefathers' paces, 



And gathering up their wonderful graces, 



So I purpose instanter to shift my machine, 



And as dramatists say, " bring out a new scene," 



In hopes that it may not be wholly unpleasant 



To rattle awhile at the humorous present ; 



Which, since through the past we've carefully traced things 



Does'nt come out of place in these rythmical bastings. 



I've seen it recorded — I can't tell the page, 

 Or whether 'twas written in this or that age — 

 But I've seen it recorded that a notable fool 

 Of a rather inhuman, socratical school, 

 (Perhaps of that sickening, uncomfortable breed 

 Who tie up their souls in the knots of a creed) 

 Thought Franklin a sinner of terrible die, 

 Because he attempted to draw from the sky, 

 And carry along in its glittering trail, 

 On the magical back of an insular rail, 

 The lightning which God had fully intended 

 Should strike exactly wherever he sent it ! 



Now what would he say — this impious croaker — 

 Could he in this age of meerschaum and choker, 

 When impious Yankees make broad their phylactery, 

 And set up a kind of man-manufactory, 



