A SAD CUTLOOK!

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, 3 October 1912, Page 25

A SAD CUTLOOK!

1 That counter lunches be abolished, commencing from Monday, September 2, 1912.” This was the resolution of the committee of the United Licensed Victuallers’ Association of New South Wales, and a mass- meeting of the Trade, held last month in Sydney. The motion was carried, with only one dissentient in a meeting of nearly 150. You see that flabby, well-fed man, Who waddles slowly down the street? You’ll notice that he scarcely can, By bending over, see his feet. You’ll wonder where he gets his scran, And what he pays for butcher’s meat. His wide expanse—his massive girth— His podgy face and harming chin— His jaunty pose and boyish mirth Bespeak a full content within! You say: “I wonder what he’s worth? That joker must have lots of tin!”

But tliat is where you’re wrong my friends; Like other fat men you have seen, He has no cash! He never spends On food a solitary bean; Unto the luncheon-bar he wends And munches there from morn till e’en. You see that thin-faced Son of Doom, Who totters feebly by his side; That limp and joyless streak of gloom, Whose stomach seems dissatisfied? Well, he’s just left the dining room— He had to leave —or he had died. Alas, Alas! That well-fed gent, Who laughs to-day with zest and vim, Will be as pale, and thin, and bent As that poor ruin next to him, Unless the publicans relent. Next month he’ll be as gaunt and slim. —‘‘Sydney Sun.”