A PICTURE OF LONDON
(PREST.)

TUNE:- "I was the boy for bewitching em;" or, "Faith, I'll away to the Bridal"

  'Tis myself that was born now in Dublin,
  All over the world I have been,
  But faith I'll not now be you troubling,
  Wid the whole of the wonders I've seen.
  A subject I've got in my noddle,
  'Tis a picture of England's joys,
  But by jabus, that there is all twaddle,
  For it's only palaver and noise.
          Talk of America, Greenland, or Finland,
          Where liberty's banner's unfurl'd,
          I'm singing a picture of England,
          The beauty and pride of the world.
  
  There's the overseers work upon sure rates,
  A set of base swindling elves,
  They distress the house keeper for poor rates,
  And sack all the money themselves.
  To the poor man who's wants are bewildering,
  If he venture his troubles to speak,
  To keep him and his wife, and six children,
  He'll get one and sixpence a week.
  
  The bishops wid gospel they stuff you,
  And for it don't charge very dear,
  'Bout the devil, and such like, they puff you,
  For just twenty thousand a-year.
  Fine luxuries they must be carving,
  Their holy paunch it must be cramm'd;
  But if a poor man says he is starving,
  They tell him to starve and be damm'd.
  
  The magistrates they're kind and tender,
  And justice they deal out so prime,
  The beggar they call an offender,
  And poverty think a big crime.
  To the wretch who's no roof to get under,
  Or victuals his belly to fill,
  They cry wid a voice loud as thunder -
  "Oh! give him six months at the mill."
  
  The ministers plunder the nation,
  A set of rapscallion calves,
  They bother the poor wid taxation,
  And glut while poor Johnny Bull starves.
  There's one tax on my soul I don't blunder,
  The window tax 'tis that I manes;
  And sure now you'll think it a wonder,
  To make people pay for their panes.
  
  They tell you in songs so bewitching,
  That Britons will never be slaves,
  What a mighty big lie they are pitching,
  And I'll tell them all so by their laves.
  The minister poverty mocks on,
  Fine feelings pretending to show,
  The poor are no better than oxen,
  And the rich are their drovers you know.

Notes:
Quite bitter for a 'comic' song. The author PREST. is also referred to as T. PREST. elsewhere in the book (Preston?).
the mill = the treadmill.
The window tax was introduced in 1696 as a replacement for the Hearth Tax. It was repealed in 1851. Some believe this was the origin of the phrase 'daylight robbery'.
Income tax was reintroduced in 1842 by Sir Robert Peel.