his christmas Roast.

Observer, 21 December 1893, Page 8

his christmas Roast.

— £..£ — /^oL F all the things in nature that afflict the sons of \/ys\ men \^y There is nothing that I know of beats the depredating hen ; If you see a wild-eyed woman firing brickbats from the shed You can bet a hen has busted up her little flower bed. She plunders and she scratches, she cackles and she hatches, And forty thousand cowboys couldn't keep ncr in a pen ; She was sent on earth to fret us, to excoriate the lettuce — She's a thoro'-goiner nuisance is the depredating hen. I threw a brick and missed her as she hustled out my beans But Julius Caesar's statue was smashed to smithereens. I saw her digging rifle pits where I'd put my pansies in, I fired a good-sized rock and hit my hired man on the shin. She busts all bounds and shackles, she giggles and she cackles, She makes me say some earnest things I haven't time to pen. I never used bad language, but now I'm filled with anguage, Alas ! I've broke the record thro' that depredating hen. But now thro'out my cabinet there floats a pleasant smell, And the reason for that perfume isn't hard to tell ; For when 1 rose this morning, saw my cabbage -bed a wreck, I caught that depredating hen and fiercely wrung her neck. I hear her fizz and crackle, no more she'll scratch and cackle, Or make my summer garden look like some hyena's den, She far too long has bossed me, she far too much has cost me, I'll eat at luncheon time to-day a twenty-guinea hen.