A _PEOPLE'S PLEASURE-GROUND_, WE ARE!!!"]

* * * * *

JIM'S JOTTINGS.

NO. 1.--DOWN OUR COURT.

(_In which Jim Juniper, better known as "Ginger Jimmy,"
discourses of Homes and Open Spaces, &c., and, puts a
practical problem to the new "Public Health, and Housing
Committee of the London County Council._")

My name is GINGER JIMMY, and I live, when I'm to hum,
In Rats Rents, the kind o' nay'brood wot the Swells now calls a Slum.
I'm a bit thick in the clear, like, and don't quite know wot they mean,
But I guess it isn't mansions, and I'm sure it isn't _clean_.

They are always on the job now about Slums, and they do say
They are going to clear _our_ Court out on the suddent some fine day.
Whether it's roads, or railways, or hotels, blowed if _I_ know;
Only 'ope they'll give us notice, and some place where we can go.

'One _is_ 'ome, if but a dungheap; if you're pitchforked out of that,
And turned loose in chilly London on the scoop, like a stray cat,
With yer bits o' sticks permiskus in a barrer or a truck,
I can tell yer you feels lost like, and fair down upon yer luck.

Heviction? When you're stoney-broke, your dubs all hup the spout,
And you've nix to raise the rent on, I suppose you _must_ turn hout;
'Cos without them "rights o' proputty" no country couldn't jog;
But that brings a cove small comfort when 'e's 'ouseless, in a fog!

I 'ave knocked about a middlin' little bit, you bet I 'ave,
And I ain't what Barber BIDDLECOMBE would call "a heasy shave";
But these Sanitary codgers give me beans, and no mistake.
I am fly to most all capers, but don't tumble to _their_ fake.

Seems to me all sentimental jor and cold chuck-out, it do.
They may call their big Committees, and may chat till all is blue,
But to shift me till they gives me somethink sweeter is all rot;
Better leave my garret winder, and the flower in the pot.

That gerenum there looks proper; which I bought it of a bloke
What does the "All a-blowin'!" with a barrer and a moke;
And though tuppences is tuppences, I ain't so jolly sure
As to spend two-d. upon it were to play the blooming cure

NICKY SPRIGGINS did chi-ike me. Reglar nubbly one is NOCK,
With about as much soft feelink as a blessed butcher's block.
He'd a made a spiffing Club Swell if he'd ony 'ad the chink,
With them lips like a ham sandwidge, and them eyes as never blink.