as victuals grow scant,
And recall, with foul faces, the source of their want--
When she thinks of their poor little mouths to be fed,
And then thinks of her trade that is utterly dead,
And even its pearlashes laid in the grave--
Whilst her tub is a dry rotting, stave after stave,
And the greatest of Coopers, ev'n he that they dub
Sir Astley, can't bind up her heart or her tub,--
Need you wonder she curses your bones, Mr. Scrub!
Need you wonder, when steam has depriv'd her of bread,
If she prays that the evil may visit _your_ head--
Nay, scald all the heads of your Washing Committee,--
If she wishes you all the soot blacks of the city--
In short, not to mention all plagues without number,
If she wishes you all in the _Wash_ at the Humber!
Ah, perhaps, in some moment of drowth and despair,
When her linen got scarce, and her washing grew rare--
When the sum of her suds might be summ'd in a bowl,
And the rusty cold iron quite enter'd her soul--
When, perhaps, the last glance of her wandering eye
Had caught "the Cock Laundresses' Coach" going by,
Or her lines that hung idle, to waste the fine weather,
And she thought of her wrongs and her rights both together,
In a lather of passion that froth'd as it rose,
Too angry for grammar, too lofty for prose,
On her sheet--if a sheet were still left her--to write,
Some remonstrance like this then, perchance, saw the light--
LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE
FROM BRIDGET JONES
TO THE NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN FORMING THE WASHING COMMITTEE.
It's a shame, so it is,--men can't Let alone
Jobs as is Woman's right to do--and go about there Own--
Theirs Reforms enuff Alreddy without your new schools
For washing to sit Up,--and push the Old Tubs from their stools!
But your just like the Raddicals,--for upsetting of the Sudds
When the world wagged well enuff--and Wommen washed your old dirty duds,
I'm Certain sure Enuff your Ann Sisters had no steem Indians, that's Flat,--
But I warrant your Four Fathers went as Tidy and gentlemanny for all that--
I suppose your the Family as lived in the Great Kittle
I see on Clapham Commun, some times a very considerable period back when
I were little,
And they Said it went with Steem,--But that was a joke!
For I never see none come of it,--that's out of it--but only sum Smoak--
And for All your Power of Horses about your Indians you never had but Two
In my time to draw you About to Fairs--and hang you, you know that's true!
And for All your f
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