The Humane Mikado.

A more humane Mikado never     Did in Japan exist,     To nobody second,     I'm certainly reckoned     A true philanthropist,     It is my very humane endeavor     To make, to some extent,     Each evil liver     A running river     Of harmless merriment.     My object all sublime     I shall achieve in time     To let the punishment fit the crime     The punishment fit the crime;     And make each prisoner pent     Unwillingly represent     A source of innocent merriment,     Of innocent merriment!     All prosy dull society sinners,     Who chatter and bleat and bore,     Are sent to hear sermons     From mystical Germans     Who preach from ten to four,     The amateur tenor, whose vocal villanies     All desire to shirk,     Shall, during off hours,     Exhibit his powers     To Madame Tussaud's waxwork.     The lady who dyes a chemical yellow,     Or stains her grey hair puce,     Or pinches her figger,     Is blacked like a nigger     With permanent walnut juice.     The idiot who, in railway carriages,     Scribbles on window panes,     We only suffer     To ride on a buffer     In Parliamentary trains.     My object all sublime     I shall achieve in time     To let the punishment fit the crime     The punishment fit the crime;     And make each prisoner pent     Unwillingly represent     A source of innocent merriment,     Of innocent merriment!     The advertising quack who wearier     With tales of countless cures.     His teeth, I've enacted,     Shall all be extracted     By terrified amateurs.     The music hall singer attends a series     Of masses and fugues and "ops"     By Bach, interwoven     With Sophr and Beethoven,     At classical Monday Pops.     The billiard sharp whom any one catches,     His doom's extremely hard     He's made to dwell     In a dungeon cell     On a spot that's always barred.     And there he plays extravagant matches     In fitless finger-stalls,     On a cloth untrue     With a twisted cue,     And elliptical billiard balls!     My object all sublime     I shall achieve in time     To let the punishment fit the crime     The punishment fit the crime;     And make each prisoner pent     Unwillingly represent     A source of innocent merriment,     Of innocent merriment!