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EVADING THE DUTY.

THE NEW TARIFF;

BY GILBERT A. A'BECKETT.

Although the reduction may be of avail,
When taken with sausages into the scale.
Look over Class One-what a list it displays
For suiting our various means to our ways;
The lovers of chicory, roasted or ground,
May get it imported at sixpence a pound.
But who shall enumerate, even by halves,

The comfits, the capers, the cherries, the calves,
Lambs, arrow-root, lobsters, pistachios, figs,

Beans, tamarinds, beer, tapioca, and pigs;

While the Premier, for cheapness to show us his zeal,

Puts only a shilling a hundred on peel.

Why subject to duties should other fish be,
When lobsters alone are admitted toll free?
No clause of the Tariff upon them is thrown,
Can it be on account of the claws of their own?

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About the new Tariff, as every one knows,

We've heard from each party the cons and the pros,
But now we will give it in language more terse,
Not adopting the cons or the pros, but the verse.
The articles touch'd on are formed into classes:
At the head of the list number one, stand the asses,-
As in every-day life very often we see
The jackasses get to the top of the tree.
It's very much like a political sin,

The donkeys on easier terms to let in ;

When to judge from the many that every day strut
In the streets, we've of asses already enough.
But they who have clamour'd so long for cheap living,
Will ask what in that way the Tariff is giving;
Since lowering donkey-flesh can't do much good,
As part of a project for cheapening food,-

CLAWS IN THE ACT.

Class Two, for those persons who like something nice, Effects a tremendous reduction in spice.

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Though cinnamon, pepper, and ginger, all three,
Very excellent things for digestion may be,
They are scarcely a boon, it must needs be confessed,
To people who cannot get food to digest.
Class Three, how it alters the duty on seeds!
And first, if a bushel of acorns one needs,
They are cheap, but it's really the richest of jokes,
Retrenchment in acorns-sounds very like oaks!
On aniseed, what though the duty is small?
To the hungry, sure, any seed 's no seed at all.
Flax, cole, coriander, and hemp, we pass over,
For, oh! can they help to put people in clover?
Class Four many woods does include, but indeed,
Not even on beef-wood the hungry can feed;
For who could a meal on such articles make?
Though in hedges of beef-wood there may be a stake.
And wood in the block, to the notion might tend,
Of taking a tête-à-tête chop with a friend.

Life's staff' they who'd make out of wood must be flighty,
It's not to be done-not with e'en lignum vitæ ;
Although out of sawdust by some it is said,
They might manufacture the Union bread.
Class Five to the growers of timber appeals,
And offers to put many spokes in their wheels;

While as to the poles, we shall have them in plenty,
At a duty of sixpence the hundred and twenty.
On boards and on battens the tax will be low,
But no one can board upon battens we know.
And the line from old Shakspere comes in not amiss,
Who is there can "batten on food such as this?"
The reduction on timber small aid will afford
To folks who have little to pay for their board.
Class Six the new duty arranges and settles
On ores, upon minerals, and upon metals;
For those who in suicide see any fun
There's arsenic lowered to sixpence a ton;
Of impudent upstarts the numerous class
Enjoy an enormous reduction in brass;
While gold is so favoured-pass free they will let it,
What a boon to the poor-let us wish they may get it!
The oxide of nickel, if any one takes,

'Tis cheaper and so is the spelter in cakes;

While coals from ten pounds to one shilling are shifted,
So are cinders-the reason of this can't be sifted ;
The revenue surely will get little cash

By this curious method of settling one's ash.
As to copper, the Premier seems running his rig,
When he talks about what it must pay in the pig;
For the copper in pig is a ring in the snout,
And the animals now can come over without.
If silver and gold they for nothing let in,
There seems some injustice in taxing the tin.
But still on the poor very hard it can't fall,
As their dealings in tin are exceedingly small.
Class Seven embraces a curious lot

Of extracts, perfumery, oils, and what not?

With handkerchiefs scented by otto of roses,

How cheap we may blow, for the future, our noses !

And even the scavengers may, if they like,
About them bear bergamotte, cassia, or spike:
There'll be no extravagance now in the wish
For quassia, paran, or blubber of fish.

To the last of these things an exception is made

In favour of British colonial trade

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To foreigners this is a bit of a rubber,
And loudly they cry that we won't have their blubber.
The clerks in the law, and assistants in shops,
Who cultivate whiskers, incipient crops,

Have something, moreover, that needs must elate 'em,
They'll rejoice, there's no doubt, in the fall of pomatum.
One item is somewhat mysterious and dark,
For what is intended by Jesuits' bark?
We know that the Catholics howl at a wake,
But what is the bark that the Jesuits make?
To discourage it surely the Minister meant,
For it's raised from five shillings to twenty per cent.
Class Eight for drugs, resins, and dye-stuffs provides,
Including a long list of many besides.

The catalogue over let any one read,

There's nothing the mouths of the hungry to feed.
In cheapening aloes and similar stuff,

Did they think that the poor had n't bitters enough?
For lowering alum there's this to be said,
We shall get rather more of it now in our bread.
Reducing gamboge can but add to our ills,
By encouraging quack manufacturers of pills.
The duty on carmine 's not altered at all,
'Tis enough to cause numerous faces to fall;
And occasion to ladies at least some dejection,
Who hoped from the Tariff a better complexion.
Class Nine, by its title, concisely avers,
Exclusive relation to skins and to furs;

On cats the old duty the Tariff awards,

And to British grimalkins protection affords;

Though the sort of protection is likely to thin them,
By holding out further inducements to skin them.
To people contented with ermine or fitch,
And who really ar n't over particular which,
There's, perhaps, no occasion at all to demur
To the Minister's method of dealing with fur;
For no one would be so exceedingly silly,
When cat skins are cheap, to complain of Chinchilly,
Class Ten comprehends the new duties they 've planned
Upon hides, and not only the raw but the tanned;

Although it is strange any difference they saw,
For tanning a hide will establish a raw :
They'll be at some pains, it must needs be confessed,
To get at the number of hides that are dressed;
Since we should not exaggerate were we to say,
In schools they amount to some thousands per day;
In establishments, p'raps, where they constantly tan 'em,
To compound would be better at so much per annum!
Class Eleven includes manufactures in leather,
Shoes, boots, and galoshes it lumps altogether.
The duties are lowered, and shoe-makers say
Their wages they will not be able to pay;
While clogs from abroad are expected to come
In such shoals as to clog up the markets at home.
We laugh at the French-they insult us in vain,
Their war-cry and bluster we treat as insane;
Their footsteps to follow we wisely refuse,
Yet the Tariff will force us to walk in their shoes.
Class Twelve does the various duties declare
On cotton, on linen, on wool, and on hair.
Oh! would that the Tariff included a tax

On the long greasy hair which hangs down on the backs
Of shop-boys and rogues, who pretensions advance
To the vile harum scarum coiffeur of Jeune France.

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On yarn, the same duty-this might be expected,
What law-makers deal in must needs be protected;
The sails of a ship, when in use they may be,
Are permitted to come into port duty free.
After this, one would scarce be astonish'd to find
In the Tariff the terms of admitting the wind;
But at present the officers can't interfere

If the Custom House Boreas chooses to clear.
And now for Thirteen-so is numbered the class,
Embodying earthenware, porcelain, and glass,
Beads, bugles, and bottles of earth and of stone,
With other things fragile together are thrown;
The duties are lowered on all, but alas!

Can they who want food have recourse to the glass?
And such is his lot for a dinner who waits,
Till he finds it by looking at certain large plates,
Which in fronts of great shops though inviting inspection,
No food can afford us-but food for reflection.
Fourteen is a class the new duties to tell
On Silk, and on silk-manufactures as well.
'Tis strange that a tax of a shilling is placed,
Not only on knubs and on husks, but on waste;
The use of such imports one scarce can discover,
For that which is waste, must be waste to bring over.
As for turbans, the Tariff as hitherto works-
Let us hope it won't lead to a war with the Turks;
Alliance with England 't will hinder, perhaps,
For now at Britannia they can't set their caps.
Fifteen is a class which the duties defines
On stores of the navy-ropes, cables, and twines.
A hundred of turpentine now may come in
For a penny-oh! what a reduction in gin!
Sixteen is a class, 'neath which we find fall
Stones, pebbles, bricks, marbles, tiles, slabs, slates, and all;
Though food it don't cheapen, and each one must own,
To those who want bread they have offered a stone.

Of lowering loaves there is reason to talk,
When letting in plaster of Paris and chalk.
In class Seventeen the reduction we see

On cocoa and coffee, tobacco and tea,

Although on the last there's at present not any,
The duty remaining at two and a penny.
Eighteen is a class which is meant to declare
The tax wines and spirits in future will bear.
Nineteen is a class that is termed miscellaneous,
Of articles from other classes extraneous-
The tar of Barbadoes, Arango's bright jet,
Birds, bladders, books, blacking, with stranger things yet;
Bones, bristles, and bulrushes, candles in view,
And wax followed closely by canes and bamboo;
Clocks, carriages, coals by the ton-not the sack,
And diamonds white in addition to black;

Pots, powder, prints, goose quills, rags, scale boards, and soap;
Toys, vases, and wafers, are all in its scope;
While telescopes they have resolved to reduce,
As being adapted for general use;

And who, after all, will deny that they are,
When the prospect of good for the country 's so far?
To Twenty we come-
-'tis the last of the classes,—
With sugar the Tariff concludes and molasses;
'T was policy, sure, the long list to complete
With provisions that all must allow to be sweet;
And though with deception the Tariff is branded,
When we come near the end we find something that's candied,
Our task is performed, let the public declare if
They 've any objection to make to our Tariff.

RUNNING GOODS.

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