More verse and prose By the Cornlaw Rhymer [i.e. Ebenezer Elliott]. In two volumes |
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DOGGREL FOR DUPES. |
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42
DOGGREL FOR DUPES.
Who's a dead canal to sell,Worth a skinn'd cat's clothing?
Who will buy a dead canal,
Dog cheap, and worth nothing?
Rig off-hand your dead canal,
Worth a skinn'd cat's clothing;
Rig off-hand, and lump the lot,
Dog cheap, and worth nothing.
At five hundred thousand pounds,
Where pluck'd geese, are cry it;
Wink at Railway Shareholders!
And the dolts will buy it.
It is a fact, that on the third of December 1845, the good-faith shareholders in a job-of-jobs which will cost eight millions—and which I will call The Gorse, Ling, Rabbit-Skin, and Shrimp Railway—were induced by their directors to guarantee forever the interest of about six hundred thousand pounds, to the proprietors of sundry dead canals, not worth sixpence! the vendors of one of which publicly feted the secretary of the purchasers! Need we wonder, if, some three years later, the shareholders of this Railway were urged by their directors to oppose government surveillance? If the history of the concern were truly written, I believe, such a plica polonica of folly or wickedness would be laid bare, as never yet met public exposure.
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