TO THE GLASGOW MAGISTRATES

May it please your Worships,

For years past, Glasgow has stood in the forefront

As a city given over to the small-pox

And magisterial reform.

It is, I believe,

An exceedingly well-managed city:

In fact, it appears to be managed

Out of all reasonable existence;

Hence, no doubt, it comes to pass

That it was lately visited

By a smart sample of the plague.

I have not the smallest doubt that your Worships

Are sincere and clean-thinking men.

I believe that you do what you do do, so to speak,

Out of sheer public spirit

And with a view to bettering the condition

Of the city over which you preside.

In other words, I impute no motives:

That is to say, no base motives.

But, my dear Worships,

Why, in the name of Heaven, would you abolish

The harmless, necessary barmaid?

Have you never been young?

Have you never known the tender delight

Of whiling away a morning

With your elbow on the zinc

And threepennyworth of Bass before you?

What, may I ask your Worships,

Is Bass without a barmaid?

I grant that, taking them all in all,

The barmaids of Scotland

Are not what you might term

An altogether bewitching lot.

Years ago, when I was young and callow,

Fate threw me into the propinquity

Of a lady of this ilk;

She hailed from Glasgow,

And she was not beautiful;

On the other hand, I was young.

And, out of an income which was even slenderer then

Than it is now,

I purchased for that dear lady of the North

Many bottles of perfume,

Many pairs of kid gloves,

And a Prayer Book or so;

And, when I had consumed innumerable Basses

At her altar,

And the time had, as I thought, become ripe,

I offered her matrimony,

To which she replied, in limpid Doric:

“Gang awa hame to yer mither.”

That, my dear Worships,

Is Glasgow!

If you can weed out of Glasgow

All young females

Possessed of this particular kind of temperament,

I am not so sure

But that you would have my blessing.

On the other hand, I am free to admit

That I hae my doots as to your capacity for so doing.

The perfume-bottle,

The kid gloves,

The Prayer Book

And “Na, na, na, I winna,”

Will always remain the prerogatives

Of the Glasgae lassies,

If I know anything of them.

Also, my dear Worships,

One thing is absolutely certain,

That, if the magistrates of all the cities

In the United Kingdom

Would take the step you have taken,

We should have gone a very considerable way

Towards solving the drink problem,

And putting Sir Michael Hicks-Beach

Into a fearful hole for money.

P. S.— I hate Scotch men,

But I sometimes think that Scotch women

Are rather bonnie.