Project Gutenberg's Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914, by Various

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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914

Author: Various

Editor: Owen Seaman

Release Date: January 18, 2008 [EBook #24357]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH ***

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PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 147.

July 1, 1914.

[Illustration]

* * * * *

[Illustration]

* * * * *

PROGRESS.

["Giving evidence recently before a Select Committee of the House of
Commons, Miss C. E. Collet, of the Home Office, said the commercial
laundry was killing the small hand laundry."--_Evening News._]

The little crafts! How soon they die!
In cottage doors no shuttle clicks;
The hand-loom has been ousted by
A large concern with lots more sticks.

The throb of pistons beats around;
Great chimneys rise on Thames's banks;
The same phenomena are found
In Sheffield. (Yorks) and Oldham (Lancs).

No longer now the housewife makes
Her rare preserves, for what's the good?
The factory round the corner fakes
Raspberry jam with chips of wood.

'Tis so with what we eat and wear,
Our bread, the boots wherein we splosh
'Tis so with what I deemed most fair,
Most virginal of all--the Wash.

'Tis this that chiefly, when I chant,
Fulfils my breast with sighs of ruth,
To think that engines can supplant
The Amazons I loved in youth.

That not with tender care, as erst
By spinster females fancy-free,
These button-holes of mine get burst
Before the shift comes back to me;

That mere machines, and not a maid
With fingers fatuously plied,
The collars and the cuffs have frayed
That still excoriate my hide;

That steam reduces to such states
What once was marred by human skill;
That socks are sundered from their mates
By means of an electric mill;

That not by Cupid's coy advance
(Some crone conniving at the fraud),
But simp