Crime and Punishment

If you would do wrong, study the justices and their mysterious minds; pander to their prejudices, and then Melbourne becomes the safest playground for the Brute and the pervert to be found in any British country.

Billy Blinkins beat his mother,
Put the boot into his brother,
Savagely attacked his sister
With a meat-axe; and just missed her.
Subsequently was arrested,
Slated before J.P.'s invested
With great powers of punishment.
Was he then to prison sent?
No; poor fellow! They'd no heart
To play such a brutal part.
"Stop your tricks!" he was commanded,
And severely reprimanded.
And the fatherly J.P.
Gently fined him two and three.

Peter Plunkin, on the races
Made a book for wins or places,
Took to betting in the street
In a manner most discreet—
Almost furtive one might say,
Lurking in a right-of-way.
He was never self-assertive.
But his mien—discreet or furtive—
In the end availed him not
When police came on the spot,
Pounced, and grabbed him, and forth-
with.

Worthy Justice Wogglesmith,
Frowning darkly, said: "Such crimes
Are a blot upon our times;
Down with betting out of bounds!
Seven months, or fifty pounds!"

Salem Sloshem kept his daughter
Fourteen days on bread and water,
Daily beat her black and blue;
Smacked her, thumped her, pinched
her, too;
Picked her up and let her fall,
Banged her head against the wall,
Shut her in the woodshed nightly,
At the time remarking brightly:
"Children should be taught their place.
That there girl's a fair disgrace!"
Neighbors then complained, and said
That the weeping in the shed
Broke their rest. "The girl was
cracked."

So the law was forced to act.
Did the J.P. punish father?
Did they come down on him?
Rather.

With a thud the law came down.
And they fined him half-a-crown.

Tommy Tink and Gerald Gundy
Kicked a football on a Sunday,
Publicly, within a park,
Thinking it a jolly lark.
Risking a parental licking,
Callously they kept on kicking,
In the Law's famed blindness trusting.

People passing said: "Disgusting!"
Called attention to the crime,
And police came in good time,
Dragged the criminals away,
And presented them next day
'Fore the court of Justice Joggle,
One who's not inclined to boggle
At a sentence just and stern,
And he said that he would "learn"
These young blackguards "wot was
wot."

'Twas "a blessin' they was cot."
Crime was crime and "lor forbids
Sunday football by these kids."
'Twas a most disgraceful game;
Crime was crime and they became
Criminals by its adoption.
"Fourteen days without the option."