SELECT POETRY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 268, 20 March 1873, Page 7

SELECT POETRY.

THE PSALM OF THE SHIRT. An erroneous idea has for some time existed in the public mind that the condition of the seamtress class has, by some unknown means, very much improved since the days when Hood penned his '• Song of the Shirt." The belief is entertained that that pathetic poem has no longer any real descriptive meaning as applied to existing conditions, and merely depicts sorrow and sufferings that have passed away. « How incorrect is this impression has been lately shown by some very graphic accounts of the wretchedness lately found existing among the needlewomen of Liverpool. In the colonies also, it is known that a great deal of miserably ill-paid work is done by this class, for earnings that barely support a wretched life. The little poem given below indicates that the same state of things exists in America. It puts the case in a very forcible way, and is written by Mr. W. A. Croffufc, in "Chicago Post," apropos of the "meeting of several societies interested in the salvation of such ' sheep ' as are duly qualified to be properly saved by being adequately lost." T>e Profcjxdis. I work in a shirting emporium For barely three dollars a week, Where the chief of the firm is an elder, All rubicund, beaming, and sleek. He lugs the remonstrating gospel In.to all of his daily affairs, Says grace both before meat and after, . And is famed for his excellent pray'rs. He wears his benevolent glasses On a nose it's an honor to know. And his gaiters of drab are a credit To his iirm — which is Grinder and Co. „. He's subscriber for missions a dozen, And snores in an annual sleep of something for saving lost of humanity's sheep. I trudge at the wearisome needle From dawn till the twilight is grey, Half blind and unspeakably aching, For fifty poor penuies a day. 1 see nothing coming that's brighter Th*n that which is now my despair, And my two little inches of mirror For ever suggests '-' You are fair." And one must be dressed like a Christian., Though not getting Christianiy pay — And how can I manage, good elder, On four of your shillings a day ? Oh, well, if it's downward I'm going, is only xve women cau go, We start from the perfectly moral Employment of Grinder and Co. Yet possibly God o'er the city Looks out with a pitiful eye, And sees, in the pitiless moral, Why we, the immoral, must cry. A scene to be wept is before me, An ultimate life in the street — Of drinking, aud beatings, and curses, And darkness, and tempest of sleet. Who knows bnt my earliest tasting Of dreamless and pitiful sleep May be in the Eefuge you're building To shelter the iost of the sheep ! Oh, elder, philanthropist model ! How much in excess would it cost, 'Stead of hunting the sheep in" their straying, To keep them from e'er being lost ?