oble plan
To make the coinage free.

"There hain't for years been sech a time,"
Said Ben to his bull pup,
"For biz--the country's broke and I'm
The hardest kind of up.

"The paper says that that's because
The silver coins is sea'ce,
And that the chaps which makes the laws
Puts gold ones in their place.

"They says them nations always be
Most prosperatin' where
The wolume of the currency
Ain't so disgustin' rare."

His dog, which hadn't breakfasted,
Dissented from his view,
And wished that he could swell, instead,
The volume of cold stew.

"Nobody'd put me up," said Ben,
"With patriot galoots
Which benefits their feller men
By playin' warious roots;

"But havin' all the tools about,
I'm goin' to commence
A-turnin' silver dollars out
Wuth eighty-seven cents.

"The feller takin' 'em can't whine:
(No more, likewise, can I):
They're better than the genooine,
Which mostly satisfy.

"It's only makin' coinage free,
And mebby might augment
The wolume of the currency
A noomerous per cent."

I don't quite see his error nor
Malevolence prepense,
But fifteen years they gave him for
That technical offense.

THE RICH TESTATOR.

He lay on his bed and solemnly "signed,"
Gasping--perhaps 'twas a jest he meant:
"This of a sound and disposing mind
Is the last ill-will and contestament."

TWO METHODS.

To bucks and ewes by the Good Shepherd fed
The Priest delivers masses for the dead,
And even from estrays outside the fold
Death for the masses he would not withhold.
The Parson, loth alike to free or kill,
Forsakes the souls already on the grill,
And, God's prerogative of mercy shamming,
Spares living sinners for a harder damning.

FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE

Observe, dear Lord, what lively pranks
Are played by sentimental cranks!
First this one mounts his hinder hoofs
And brays the chimneys off the roofs;
Then that one, with exalted voice,
Expounds the thesis of his choice,
Our understandings to bombard,
Till all the window panes are starred!
A third augments the vocal shock
Till steeples to their bases rock,
Confessing, as they humbly nod,
They hear and mark the will of God.
A fourth in oral thunder vents
His awful penury of sense
Till dogs with sympathetic howls,
And lowing cows, and cackling fowl