PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARIVOLUME 104, MAY 6TH 1893
edited by Sir Francis Burnand
A PATHETIC LAMENT.
( Respectfully addressed to one of the Promoters of the Anti Advertisement League by a Repentant Subscriber. )
[Illustration]
I.
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!
II.
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.
III.
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!
IV.
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!
