pallet! Oh lor!
It may suit a few stumpies, but England holds more.
Might as well fit us out with fixed 'duds' from our birth.
Regardless of difference in growth, or in girth.
No! Snap-votes may be caught 'midst a Congress's roar,
But tool us all down to one gauge, mate? Oh lor!!!"

New Unionist Titan and Stentor in one,
To pose as PROCRUSTES may seem rather fun;
When it comes to the pinch of experiment, then
You may find that some millions of labouring men
Of all sorts and sizes, all callings and crafts,
The toilers by furnaces, factories, shafts,
The thrall of the mine, and the swart stithy slave,
The boys of the bench, and the sons of the wave,
Are not quite so easy to "size up" all round
To that comfortless bed where you'd have them all bound,
As the travellers luckless who fell in the way
Of the old Attic highwayman THESEUS did slay.
Though your voice may sound loud and your thews look immense,
_You_ may fall to the THESEUS--of Free Common Sense!
As BURT says--and his eloquence moves but beguiles not--
On short cuts to Millennium Providence smiles not!

[Footnote 1: LUCIAN's _Dialogues of the Dead_.]

* * * * *

APPROPRIATE LOCATION.--"Yes," said a friend of the person they were
discussing, "he is a great traveller, and tells you some of the most
marvellous stories." "Where does he live?" was the question. And the
very natural answer was, "Oh, in some out-and-out-lying district."

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE MODERN "BED OF PROCRUSTES."

PROCRUSTES. "NOW THEN, YOU FELLOWS; I MEAN TO FIT YOU ALL TO MY LITTLE
BED!"

CHORUS. "OH LOR-R!!"

["It is impossible to establish universal uniformity of hours without
inflicting very serious injury to workers."--_Motion at the recent
Trades' Congress._]]

* * * * *

THE BITTER CRY OF THE OUTCAST CHOIR-BOY.

[Illustration]

Break, break, break,
O voice, on my old top C!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me!

O, well for the fishmonger's boy
That he shrieks his two notes above A.!
O, well for the tailor's son
That he soars in the old, old way!

And the twelve-year chaps go on
Up the gamut steady and shrill;
But, O, for the creak of a larynx cracked,
And a glottis that won't keep still!

Break, break, break,
O voice, on my dear top C.
But the