The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104,
May 6, 1893, by Various, Edited by F. C. (Francis Cowley) Burnand

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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893

Author: Various

Editor: F. C. (Francis Cowley) Burnand

Release Date: August 28, 2008 [eBook #26454]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
VOLUME 104, MAY 6, 1893***

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI

VOLUME 104, MAY 6TH 1893

edited by Sir Francis Burnand

A PATHETIC LAMENT.

(_Respectfully addressed to one of the Promoters of the
Anti-Advertisement League by a Repentant Subscriber._)

[Illustration]

I.

BEING gifted with decent taste and a sensitive eye,
I have never been much beguiled
By advertisements, crude in colour, and ten feet high
(Which, in fact, I rather reviled);
And, as for gigantic signs swinging up in the sky--
They drove me perfectly wild!

II.

Then the lurid posters on paling and chimney-stack
Were the terror of every town--
Till a League was started by Mr. WILLIAM BLACK
For the purpose of putting them down;
And the sympathetic invited its efforts to back
With an annual half-a-crown.

III.

So I cheerfully paid the fee, and my name was enrolled,
And a solemn oath I swore;
(As is usual on such occasions,--or so I'm told)
That, in future, no shop or store
Which aggressively advertised any article sold
I would patronise any more!

IV.

But that mad rash oath I recall with a vain regret,
As I brood in bitter complaint,
On the number of useful things that I'm dying to get--