My income once was safe, if small;
    It’s larger, but unpaid,
  Despite “the quite phenomenal
    Development of Trade.” 
  The “Bogus Man” is on the track,
    And queer “Financial Gents”
  Have promised me in white and black
    Their Six and Ten per Cents.

  The Three per Cents were regular,
    Respectable, and good. 
  Their health was such that “under par”
    They very seldom stood;
  They needed no “conversion” rash,
    Like Darker Continents;
  A sort of Sunday turned to cash
    They were, my Three per Cents.

  A distant river somewhere rolls,
    The wicked River Plate;
  Upon its banks there flourish souls
    Perverse and reprobate. 
  Ah, send your missionaries there! 
    If haply it repents,
  I’ll not surrender Eaton Square
    For Surrey’s wild or Kent’s.

  Not I alone; the best that breathe,
    Archbishop, Duke, and Lord,
  Your bust with chaplets rare will wreathe,
    This boon if you’ll accord. 
  How can we by example shame
    The mob who mock at rents,
  If we are left to do the same
    Without our Three per Cents?

  Reft of a carriage, life is poor: 
    A well-conducted set
  Needs ready money to procure
    Their butler and Debrett. 
  The country totters to its fall,
    Disgraced to all intents,
  Unless you instantly recall
    Our solid Three per Cents.

* * * * *

THE FLOWERLESS FUNERAL.

(BY A FLOWER MERCHANT.)

  Funeral Reform?  Oh! just a fad,—­
  Its advocates, in fact, as bad
    As those who want Cremation. 
  A set of foolish, fussy fools
  Whose misplaced ardour nothing cools—­
    A nuisance to the nation!

  Economy, they’re all agreed,
  Should be with them a cult and creed,
    Simplicity a passion. 
  They’d quickly wreck this trade of ours,
  Since they would scorn the use of flowers,
    If they could set the fashion!

  Yes; parsons agitate, but these
  Good gentlemen all take their fees—­
    We thank them much for giving
  Such good advice upon this head,
  But recollect that from the dead
    We’ve got to get our living!

* * * * *

CHORUS OF THE OBJECTORS TO THE PROPOSED LORD’S TUNNEL
RAILWAY.—­“WATKIN the matter be!”

* * * * *

MR. PUNCH’S PRIZE NOVELS.

NO.  XIV.—­LE PETROLIUM; OU, LES SALOPERIES PARISIENNES.

(Par Zorgon-Gola, Auteur de “Toujours Poivre,” “Charbon et Crasse,” “La Fange,” “499 Pages d’Amour,” “Le Pourvoyeur Universel,” “Une Reveuse qui vise l’Academie.”)

I.—­LA FAMILLE.