The Project Gutenberg eBook, Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893, by Various, Edited by F. C. (Francis Cowley) Burnand
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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893
Release Date: August 28, 2008 [eBook #26454]
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(_Respectfully addressed to one of the Promoters of the Anti-Advertisement League by a Repentant Subscriber._)
BEING gifted with decent taste and a sensitive eye, I have never been much beguiled By advertisements, crude in colour, and ten feet high (Which, in fact, I rather reviled); And, as for gigantic signs swinging up in the sky-- They drove me perfectly wild!
Then the lurid posters on paling and chimney-stack Were the terror of every town-- Till a League was started by Mr. WILLIAM BLACK For the purpose of putting them down; And the sympathetic invited its efforts to back With an annual half-a-crown.
So I cheerfully paid the fee, and my name was enrolled, And a solemn oath I swore; (As is usual on such occasions,--or so I'm told) That, in future, no shop or store Which aggressively advertised any article sold I would patronise any more!
But that mad rash oath I recall with a vain regret, As I brood in bitter complaint, On the number of useful things that I'm dying to get-- And my conscience tells me I mayn't! As their various virtues are vaunted in letters of jet, Or gaudier gilding and paint!
I should like to be clean if I could--but I cannot cope, Without saponaceous aid, With a shower of London smuts--and I'm losing hope, Getting daily a dingier shade, In a futile search for a genuine Toilet-soap That has shunned meretricious parade!