doubt, the bull conceives!

The farmer bids men bring more hives
To house the profit that arrives;
Prepares on pan, and key and kettle,
Sweet music that shall make 'em settle;
But when to crown the work he goes,
Gods! What a stink salutes his nose!
Where are the honest toilers?
Where The gravid mistress of their care?
A busy scene, indeed, he sees,
But not a sign or sound of bees.
Worms of the riper grave unhid
By any kindly coffin lid,
Obscene and shameless to the light,
Seethe in insatiate appetite,
Through putrid offal; while above
The hissing blow-fly seeks his love,
Whose offspring, supping where they supt,
Consume corruption twice corrupt.

WITH THE NIGHT MAIL

A STORY OF 2000 A. D.

(Together with extracts from the magazine in which it appeared)

A nine o'clock of a gusty winter night I stood on the lower stages of
one of the G.P.O. outward mail towers. My purpose was a run to Quebec
in "Postal Packet 162 or such other as may be appointed"; and the
Postmaster-General himself countersigned the order. This talisman opened
all doors, even those in the despatching-caisson at the foot of the
tower, where they were delivering the sorted Continental mail. The bags
lay packed close as herrings in the long grey underbodies which our
G.P.O. still calls "coaches." Five such coaches were filled as I
watched, and were shot up the guides to be locked on to their waiting
packets three hundred feet nearer the stars.

From the despatching-caisson I was conducted by a courteous and
wonderfully learned official Mr. L.L. Geary, Second Despatcher of
the Western Route--to the Captains' Room (this wakes an echo of old
romance), where the mail captains come on for their turn of duty. He
introduces me to the captain of "162"--Captain Purnall, and his relief,
Captain Hodgson. The one is small and dark; the other large and red;
but each has the brooding sheathed glance characteristic of eagles and
aeronauts. You can see it in the pictures of our racing professionals,
from L.V. Rautsch to little Ada Warrleigh--that fathomless abstraction
of eyes habitually turned through naked space.

On the notice-board in the Captains' Room, the pulsing arrows of some
twenty indicators register, degree by