Lady, dangers lurk in boilers,

Risks I could not let you face.

Men were meant to be the toilers,

Home, you know, is woman's place.

Have no home? Well, is that so?

Still, it's not my fault, you know.

Charming lady, work no more;

Fair you are and sweet as honey;

Work might make your fingers sore,

And, besides, I need the money.

Prithee rest,—or starve or rob—

Only let me have your job!

I

My wife dislikes the income tax,

And so I cannot pay it;

She thinks that golf all interest lacks,

So now I never play it;

She is opposed to tolls repeal

(Though why I cannot say),

But woman's duty is to feel,

And man's is to obey.

II

I'm in a hard position for a perfect gentleman,

I want to please the ladies, but I don't see how I can,

My present wife's a suffragist, and counts on my support,

But my mother is an anti, of a rather biting sort;

One grandmother is on the fence, the other much opposed,

And my sister lives in Oregon, and thinks the question's closed;

Each one is counting on my vote to represent her view.

Now what should you think proper for a gentleman to do?

Let us not to an unrestricted day

Impediments admit. Work is not work

To our employés, but a merry play;

They do not ask the law's excuse to shirk.

Ah, no, the canning season is at hand,

When summer scents are on the air distilled,

When golden fruits are ripening in the land,

And silvery tins are gaping to be filled.

Now to the cannery with jocund mien

Before the dawn come women, girls and boys,

Whose weekly hours (a hundred and nineteen)

Seem all too short for their industrious joys.

If this be error and be proved, alas

The Thompson-Bewley bills may fail to pass!