'll take our own seats in the House,
And have our expenses paid out of the rates.

A LOCAL RATEPAYER (_andante_).

Nay, nay! To take your seats, you're free,
But not, oh! not, to burthen me!
Enough am I already charged,
And would not see the sum enlarged,
Your pay,--that is your own affair;
I care not whence it emanates:
I only most distinctly swear,
You shall not get it from the rates.

CHORUS (_advancing on him threateningly_).

Be still, and know that the whole nation,
Bows down to the Association!
[_The Local Ratepayer cowers before them._
And yet this question of the land
We own we don't quite understand.
Is there no specialist who'll try
To make it clear?

_Enter_ Mr. JOSEPH ARCH. _He bounds into their midst._

MR. JOSEPH ARCH.

Why here am I!
You want your intellect to march?
[_They express assent._
Then listen all to JOSEPH ARCH.
[_They group themselves in attentive
positions gracefully about him._

BALLAD.

A man may own jewels and gold,
A piano, horse, railway shares,
A cellar of wine, new or old,
A house, and the clothes that he wears.
Everything he may sell, or may buy,
That is purchased by wealth or by toil;
But he mustn't own--no matter why--
A single square yard of the soil.
He this who from HODGE, its true owner, perverts,
Is a brigand, and merits a brigand's deserts!

This park that around you you see,
These gardens you so much admire,
Each hedgerow, each copse, every tree,
Is the owner's bequeathed from his sire.
He may have remitted his rents!
What of that till the Nation cries "Quits!"
His land, with the march of events,
Being purloined and cut up into bits?
For until to its true owner, HODGE, it reverts,--
He's a brigand, and merits a brigand's deserts!

[_At the conclusion of the ballad_ Mr. JOSEPH ARCH _gives a signal
and the_ OWNER OF THE PROPERTY _is led on in the custody of
Trade-Union Myrmidons_.

CHORUS.

Rob him! fleece him! gag him! seize him!
Drive him from his country place.
Of his right of tenure ease him;
Call him "Brigand" to his face!

OWNER OF THE PROPERTY (_recitative_).

Oh, outrage horrible
And entirely unsatisfactory,
Thus to fasten with salutations
Eminently unpalatable
On the defenceless monied one of the County!
Know ye not that my ven