I find in Folly and in Vice a lack
Of head to hit, and for the lash no back;
Whilst Pixley has a pow that’s easy struck,
And though good Deacon Fitch (a Fitch for luck!)
Has none, yet, lest he go entirely free,
God gave to him a corn, a heel to me. 
He, also, sets his face (so like a flint
The wonder grows that Pickering doesn’t skin’t)
With cold austerity, against these wars
On scamps—­’tis Scampery that he abhors! 
Behold advance in dignity and state—­
Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great—­
Stanford, philanthropist!  One hand bestows
In alms what t’other one as justice owes. 
Rascality attends him like a shade,
But closes, woundless, o’er my baffled blade,
Its limbs unsevered, spirit undismayed. 
Faith!  I’m for something can be made to feel,
If, like Pelides, only in the heel. 
The fellow’s self invites assault; his crimes
Will each bear killing twenty thousand times! 
Anon Creed Haymond—­but the list is long
Of names to point the moral of my song. 
Rogues, fools, impostors, sycophants, they rise,
They foul the earth and horrify the skies—­
With Mr. Huntington (sole honest man
In all the reek of that rapscallion clan)
Denouncing Theft as hard as e’er he can!

THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC MORALS

The Senate met in Sacramento city;
On public morals it had no committee
Though greatly these abounded.  Soon the quiet
Was broken by the Senators in riot. 
Now, at the end of their contagious quarrels,
There’s a committee but no public morals.

CALIFORNIA

    [The Chinaman’s Assailant was allowed to walk quietly
    away, although the street was filled with
    pedestrians.—­Newspaper.]

Why should he not have been allowed
To thread with peaceful feet the crowd
  Which filled that Christian street? 
The Decalogue he had observed,
From Faith in Jesus had not swerved,
And scorning pious platitudes,
He saw in the Beatitudes
  A lamp to guide his feet.

He knew that Jonah downed the whale
And made no bones of it.  The tale
  That Ananias told
He swore was true.  He had no doubt
That Daniel laid the lions out. 
In short, he had all holiness,
All meekness and all lowliness,
  And was with saints enrolled.

’Tis true, some slight excess of zeal
Sincerely to promote the weal
  Of this most Christian state
Had moved him rudely to divide
The queue that was a pagan’s pride,
And in addition certify
The Faith by making fur to fly
  From pelt as well as pate?

But, Heavenly Father, thou dost know
That in this town these actions go
  For nothing worth a name. 
Nay, every editorial ass,
To prove they never come to pass
Will damn his soul eternally,
Although in his own journal he
  May read the printed shame.