A Selection of Original Songs, Scraps, Etc., by Ned Farmer (3rd ed.)/An Appeal to the Rats—by One of Themselves
An Appeal to the Rats—by One of Themselves.
"On Tuesday night, at Shaw's, Bunhill Row, his little dog, Tiney, weighing only 5½ lbs, killed two hundred rats in fifty-six minutes and fifty seconds."—Vide Bell's Life.
[Kindly inserted in Bell's Life.]
Ye rats of England—if there still remains
That love of idleness, of dirt, and drains,
Which your bold ancestors from Norway brought,
When years ago this sea-girt isle they sought—
Brown, black, or white, large, middle-sized, or small,
I charge ye, listen to a patriot's call!
No matter where your residence may be,
If by the water-side or hollow tree,
Ye lie contented in some moss-lined nook,
And calmly listen to the murmuring brook;
Whether in lordly pile or cottage bred,
In well-stored barn or under pigstye bed;
If bean rick hold you, or you fix your seat
In barley staddle, or in thatch of wheat,
Behind a wainscoat, or beneath a floor,
I ask your presence, and I ask no more.
Be ye but ready, and ne'er heed how rough,
Though bred and nurtured in "a common sough,"
Wrongs ye have suffered, wrongs, too, tamely borne—
The time is come ! discard the yoke you've worn!
Shall all things else with liberty be blessed,
And rats alone have evils unredressed?
Forbid it, injuries too long sustained!
Forbid it, rights long lost to be regained!
Come from your holes, concentrate all your powers,
And justice, liberty, and revenge are ours.
Shall that fell despot, man, with tyrant power,
Heap wrong on wrong, increasing every hour
The huge indignities, and we submit?
No! rather let Sedition's fire be lit,
And all the consequences of internal strife—
The loss of blood, of credit, and of life.
And the reaction which we know succeeds,
When the best interests of a country bleeds.
Regardless of all this, divine and human laws,
Up rats and arm! get ready teeth and claws;
Be this our war-cry, "Down with men and buffers!"
'Tis all for freedom! so ne'er heed who suffers!
'Tis not enough that ferrets, Hob and Jill,
Are taught to hunt us out, and dogs to kill
In honest warfare, but by traps we're caught,
And (hear it all of ye) in bags are brought.
Huddled together—nay, suspend your rage—
And foully murdered in a cockpit cage.
Go, search the columns of last Sunday's Bell's,
And note the horrid butchery it tells.
One Shaw, of Bunhill-row, hath got a tyke
(Sure mortal ears ne'er listened to the like),
Who did—oh, sickening and appalling sight—
Destroy two hundred rats on Tuesday night!
And dogs did yelp, and men did shout and laugh.
While this small canine, five pounds and a half,
Trained by his owner this vile deed to do,
Made many a widowed rat and orphan too.
Further I shall not say, except with tooth and claw,
Pitch into all your foes, especially old Shaw;
And do it rats at once, for you must see, of course.
The little good that's got by merely moral force.
One brief short sentence more—Be bold! and verbum sat,
A small subscription[1] raise for yours,
An Old Buck Rat.
- ↑ There that's exactly what I expected; the old rat winds up just like all the rest of these would be patriots, with a hint about giving him summutt. It's a nation strange thing they never can, somehow, get their feelings to rise higher than their breeches pockets. They're all alike for that—Printer's Devil.