A BLACK JOB. No doubt the pleasure is as great, THE history of human-kind to trace HUDIBRAS. Since Eve-the first of dupes-our doom unriddled, A certain portion of the human race Has certainly a taste for being diddled. Witness the famous Mississippi dreams! A rage that time seems only to redoubleThe Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the flimsy schemes, For rolling in Pactolian streams, That cost our modern rogues so little trouble. To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble, And lord! what hundreds will subscribe for soap! Soap! it reminds me of a little tale, Once on a time-no matter when- Set up a Philanthropical Society, As smut to flour, as coal to alabaster, As crows to swans, as soot to driven snow, However, as is usual in our city, A board of grave, responsible Directors— Not merely male, but female duns, Young, old, and middle-aged-of all degrees With many of those persevering ones, Who mite by mite would beg a cheese ! And what might be their aim? To rescue Afric's sable sons from fettersTo save their bodies from the burning shame Of branding with hot letters Their shoulders from the cowhide's bloody strokes, To end or mitigate the ills of slavery, And make them worthy of eternal bliss ? They look'd so ugly in their sable hides; |