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Дата написания1970-01-01
Язык книгиen
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TO JOHN BULL

Oh don't you remember sweet Ireland, John Bull? Green Erin beyond the blue sea? And the patriots there whom you starved, hung, and shot, Because they desired to be free. On the lone heather wild, in the dark silent glen, The peasant still shows you the graves Of the heroes who fell in the year ninety-eight And died ere they'd live as your slaves. And don't you remember your own words, John Bull, Of the Southern Confed—er—a—cie? When you said in the Times, that your heart went of course With a brave race which sought to be free. Oh what do you think of Old Ireland, John Bull? There's a race that's as brave as your own, And one that would like very well to be free, If you only would let it alone. And don't you remember great India, John Bull? With the Sepoys you blew from your guns, And the insult and murder of Brahmins, John Bull, For some outrage endured from their sons? The outrage was proved a black lie, as you know, A lie, as your own books declare: Your hell-hounds of Havelocks stirred up the war, And what business had they to be there? And don't you remember great China, John Bull, Where you smeared yourself blacker with sin? Where the Emperor tried to keep opium out, And you fought to force opium in? It was Government opium from India, too, Which poisons both body and soul; You have fought against freedom with steel, Johnny Bull; With the steel and the cord and the bowl. And do you believe in a God, Johnny Bull, Or anything after the grave? Then tell us what waits for the sinner who aids The tyrant to trample the slave? I'll not ask if you've faith in a Devil, John Bull: One might think he were laid on the shelf, To see you unpunished—but now I believe That you are the False One himself.

We are indebted to a friend for the following tales of foraging, which are vouched for as authentic:

A company of the Two—th cavalry of volunteers, no matter in what State, were out on a forage, with the usual orders to respect the enemy's property. But coming on a plantation where chickens and turkeys were dallying in the sunshine, the officer in command, tired of pork and plaster-pies, alias hard biscuit, gave the boys leave to club over as many of the 'two-legged things in feathers' as they could conveniently come at. The result was that a good number were despatched, and being tied together by the legs, were slung over the pommel of the saddle of 'Benny,' an old sabreur, who had frontiered it for years, been in more Indian fights than you could shake a stick at, and could tell, if he wanted to, of some high-old-hard times with these same Mdewakantonwar, Wahpekute, Ihanktonwannas, and Minnikanyewazhipu red-skinned fiends.

Returning to camp, as ill luck would have it, they met the colonel of their regiment riding out to a neighboring camp. Just before they met him, in fact when they were nearly up to him, for a curve in the road had hid him from sight till then, the officer in command rode by Benny with the command:

'D—n it, man, why don't you sling those chickens the other side your saddle? The colonel will see them, hanging that way.'

'Can't be done! got fourteen turkeys there on a balance!'

By remarkably good fortune the colonel did not see the chickens, so they and the turkeys were safely smuggled into camp, Benny getting full credit for maintaining the balance of power, when the odds were dead against him.

Story ye second:

When the Forty-eleventh P.M. were camped near Boonesboro', what time the rebels were driven out of Maryland, the colonel of the said regiment duly issued orders that all provender taken by troops under his command should be fairly paid for without defalcation for value received. Now it happened one bright morning that the major of the aforesaid regiment riding out near camp, saw a private deliberately lift up what is known in Southern tongue as a 'rock,' and throwing the same with great skill, instantly kill a small pig that with half a dozen other small pigs were following their mother at full speed away from the neighborhood of this same private.

The soldier, who was an Irishman, picked up the pig, and hiding it under his army sack, was returning to camp, when, lifting up his head, he saw before him the major, who, assuming his most solemn look, thus spoke to him:

'What have you under your coat, there?'

'Shure it's an empty stomach, sirr!—and a small pig that's hurted itself—poor little thing!—and I'm taking it home to mend its leg, to be sure:—the poor crayture wud be after dying if left all alone in the cold, the raw morning.'

The major dearly relished the joke, but discipline is discipline, and there was but one way to overlook this breach of it: that was to punish Paddy by giving him a three-mile walk down the road, and over the fields back to camp, before he could bring his pig in.

'You say the pig is lame?' asked the officer.

'Shure, that's the truth, sirr; and I'm afther belaving it'll niver be able to run any more at all, at all: be the same token its tail's out of curl entirely; and had'nt I better be afther taking it home than letting it die like a haythin in the road here?'

'Do you see that old sow down the road there with those other pigs? you follow her home at once, sir, and leave the lame pig there!'

Saying which, the major continued his ride, and the Irishman duly followed the old sow to—a turn in the road, when he 'obeyed orders,' and left the lame pig 'at home,' where that night at least one mess had roast pig with 'ubi beans ibi patria,' sauce at discretion.

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