When we got back, we found that Carlo had nearly gnawed his way through the bed-room door, and was growling horribly at the boots and the chambermaid through the keyhole. Charming dog!
* * * * *
SIMIAN TALK.
Professor GARNERS, in the New Review
Tells us that “Apes can talk.”
That’s nothing new;
Reading much “Simian” literary
rot,
One only wishes that our “Apes”
could not!
* * * * *
THE NEW TALE OF A TUB; OR, THE NOT-AT-HOME SECRETARY AND THE LAUNDRESSES.
[Illustration: “CAN’T SEE YOU NOW, I’M WASHING—MYSELF.”
“The Women are crying out for the protection of the Factory Acts, which has hitherto been denied them, and which the Home Secretary declines to pledge the Government to support.”—Daily Telegraph, Friday, June 12th.]
London Laundry-woman, to her Tub-mate, loquitur:—
They tell us the Tub is humanity’s
friend, and that Cleanliness is of
closest kin
To all things good. By the newest
gospel ’tis held that Dirt is the
friend of Sin.
Well, I’m not so sure that the world’s
far wrong in that Worship of
Washing that’s
all the rage;
But we, its priestesses, sure might claim
a cleanly life and a decent
wage!
Listen, BET, from your comfortless seat
on the turned-up pail,—if
you’ve got
the time;
Isn’t it queer that Society’s
cleansers must pass their lives amidst
muck and grime?
Spotless flannels no doubt are nice—and
snowy linen is “swell” and sweet,
But steaming reek is around our heads,
and trickling foulness about our
feet.
If the dainty ladies whose linen we lave,
we laundress drudges, could
look in here,
Wouldn’t their feet shrink back
with sickness, and wouldn’t their faces
go pale with fear?
White, well-ironed, all sheen and sweetness,
that linen looks when it
leaves our hands;
But they little think of the sodden squalor
that marks the den where
the laundress
stands.