Ah! them two D’s goes together.  Just you plant some orty Queen
  In a rookery, in her kidhood, and then tell her to keep clean,
  Wash ’er face, and mend ’er garments,—­wich they’re mostly
          sewed-up rags,—­
  In six months she’d be a scare-crow, ’ands like sut, and ’air all
          jags.

  Wot yer washups don’t quite tumble to’s the fack as like breeds
          like. 
  If you would himprove Slum-dwellers, at the Slum you fust must
          strike. 
  Give us small dark ’oles to dwell in, and you must be jolly green
  If you think folks bred in dirt like, are a-going to keep ’em clean.

  When the sewer-rats take to sweetening and lime-washing their
          foul ’oles,
  And bright light and disinfectants are the fads of skunks and moles,
  Then poor souls in cellar-dwellings and in jerry-builders’ dens,
  Will be smart as young canaries and as clean as clucking hens.

  NOCKY SPRIGGINGS guyed me proper, in his chuckly sorter style,
  With his thumb ’ooked orful hartful, and his chickaleary smile. 
  “JIM,” sez he, “wot price your jabber?  Do yer think the blooming
          blokes
  Cares a cuss for me and you, JIM, any more than for our mokes?

  “Shut yer face, you pattering josser!  Dirt and Drink is good for
          Rents! 
  If the Poor wos clean and sober, where ’ud be their
          cent-per-cents? 
  If it’s Public ’Ouse ’gainst Wash ’Ouse, if it’s Slumland wersus
          Swipes,
  I am on for booze and backy ‘stead o’ drains and water-pipes.

  “You may be too jolly clean, JIM, and a precious sight too
          light,
  Were’s the good to scrub yer skin orf!  And if when a cove gits
          tight,
  Or would give his donah wot-for on the Q.T. wot a lark
  If there weren’t no ’andy alleys, nor no corners snug and dark.

  “If the Public—­and the Slops—­wos always fly to wot we done,
  ‘Long o’ widened streets and gas-light, wy we’d ’ave no blooming
          fun. 
  Lagged for larrupping yer missus, nailed for boozing till yer nod? 
  Wy, you jabbering young Juggins, we should always be in quod!”

  ’Ard nut is NOCKY SPRIGGINGS—­of the sort as make the slums,
  ’Cos there ain’t much chance for cleanness, or for comfort, when
          he comes. 
  He’s as ’appy in the dirt, gents, as a blowfly or a ’og;
  Or poor Paddy in his tater-patch alongside of a bog;

  He’d chop up ’is doors and winders for a fire to ’ot his lush,
  Don’t care a ’ang for decency, and never raised a blush. 
  But, arter my hexperience—­and I’ve ’ad some down our court—­
  I believe that—­fair at bottom—­it’s the Slum as makes his sort.

  Anyways I’m pooty certain, if we’d got more light and space,
  And were not jammed up together in a filthy, ill-drained place;
  If the sunlight could but see us, and the public and the cops,
  There would be less booze and bashing, fewer drabs and
          drinking-shops.