Certain 'tis, with crew and captain, Officers also, Things don't go on quite as pleasant As they used to go. There's been some high-handed doings, Some quite the reverse; Some's took sick, and some's took sulky; Some took soft, or worse.
There's sea-lawyers--donkey-engines Can't their slack haul in; You may stop their grog, you'll never Stop the yarns they spin: There's your discontented beggars, Nothing e'er can please; There's your pennywise 'uns, nibbling At the dips and cheese.
There's your mutineers, for mischief Ripe 'gainst flag and Crown; Never pleased unless they're turning 'Tween-decks upside down. There's your Queen's bad bargains, shirking Work, whoever strain: Trimmers COX'S traverse working-- "There and back again."
Green-hands, as can't fudge a reckoning, Of a watch in charge; Looking after the _Britannia_, And can't steer a barge! For the Captain has his fancies-- When he's picked a man For a job, whoe'er can't do it, _He's_ the chap as _can_.
Anyway the ship's the better By a good A.B., Now JOHN BRIGHT is all a-taunto, And come back to sea. Be't to talk to the blue-jackets Like a 'cute old salt; Con the ship, or call the soundings, Hide or slang a fault--
On the yardarm, big guns blowing, Weather ear-ring take; With bright yarns, to keep the watches Spry and wide-awake; So as to give cyclones the go-by, Safest course to steer; Canvas when to spread, when shorten, With a lee-shore near--
No A.B. in the _Britannia_ Better knows than JOHN: Which let's hope that CAPTAIN G. will Take his advice thereon. Well we know that now JOHN'S buckled To his work again, 'Twill for officers be better, And for ship and men!
CAPTAIN GLADSTONE. "GLAD TO SEE YOU, JOHN. GLAD YOU'RE A.B. AGAIN. IF IT COMES ON TO BLOW, WE MAY WANT YOUR ASSISTANCE."]
A NOVEL kind of Christmas Box is suggested by a legend which _Mr. Punch_ lately beheld in the window of a hair-dresser's shop--"Presents for Christmas." It was posted in the midst of a variety of Chignons. A box containing a quantity of false hair is the Christmas-Box thereby presented to the imagination of the passer-by. But who would offer it to a young lady? Such a present is equivalent to the gift of a wig. It is a Christmas-Box or a New Year's Gift of a class in which may be included several other articles of a similar description, but more useful, and much more ornamental. For instance, you might give a friend in need, personal and pecuniary, a Christmas-Box in the shape of a set of artificial teeth, or the "Guinea Jaw" of our friend the Dentist, or a glass eye, or a gutta-percha nose, or a wooden leg.