Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads






MUNICIPAL

          “Why is my District death-rate low?”
             Said Binks of Hezabad.
          “Well, drains, and sewage-outfalls are
            “My own peculiar fad.

          “I learnt a lesson once, It ran
          “Thus,” quoth that most veracious man:—

  It was an August evening and, in snowy garments clad,
  I paid a round of visits in the lines of Hezabad;
  When, presently, my Waler saw, and did not like at all,
  A Commissariat elephant careering down the Mall.

  I couldn't see the driver, and across my mind it rushed
  That that Commissariat elephant had suddenly gone musth.

  I didn't care to meet him, and I couldn't well get down,
  So I let the Waler have it, and we headed for the town.

  The buggy was a new one and, praise Dykes, it stood the strain,
  Till the Waler jumped a bullock just above the City Drain;
  And the next that I remember was a hurricane of squeals,
  And the creature making toothpicks of my five-foot patent wheels.

  He seemed to want the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear,
  To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear—
  Reached the four-foot drain-head safely and, in darkness and despair,
  Felt the brute's proboscis fingering my terror-stiffened hair.

  Heard it trumpet on my shoulder—tried to crawl a little higher—
  Found the Main Drain sewage outfall blocked, some eight feet up, with mire;
  And, for twenty reeking minutes, Sir, my very marrow froze,
  While the trunk was feeling blindly for a purchase on my toes!

  It missed me by a fraction, but my hair was turning grey
  Before they called the drivers up and dragged the brute away.

  Then I sought the City Elders, and my words were very plain.
  They flushed that four-foot drain-head and—it never choked again!

  You may hold with surface-drainage, and the sun-for-garbage cure,
  Till you've been a periwinkle shrinking coyly up a sewer.

  I believe in well-flushed culverts....

                                    This is why the death-rate's small;
  And, if you don't believe me, get shikarred yourself. That's all.

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