The Sinking Fund Cried

[“Now what, we ask, is become of this Sinking Fund – these eight millions of surplus above expenditure, which were to reduce the interest of the national debt by the amount of four hundred thousand pounds annually? Where, indeed, is the Sinking Fund itself?” – The Times]

Take your bell, take your bell,
Good Crier, and tell
To the Bulls and the Bears, till their ears are stunn’d,
That, lost or stolen,
Or fall’n through a hole in
The Treasury floor, is the Sinking Fund!

O yes! O yes!
Can anybody guess
What the deuce has become of this Treasury wonder?
It has Pitt’s name on’t,
All brass, in the front,
And R–b–ns–n’s scrawl’d with a goose-quill under.

Folks well knew what
Would soon be its lot,
When Frederick or Jenky set hobnobbing,[1]
And said to each other,
“Suppose, dear brother,
We make this funny old Fund worth robbing.”

We are come, alas!
To a very pretty pass —
Eight Hundred Millions of score, to pay,
With but Five in the till,
To discharge the bill,
And even that Five too, whipp’d away!

Stop thief! stop thief! —
From the Sub to the Chief,
These Genmen of Finance are plundering cattle —
Call the watch, call Bougham
Tell Joseph Hume,
That best of Charleys, to spring his rattle.

Whoever will bring
This aforesaid thing
To the well-known house of Robinson and Jenkin,
Shall be paid, with thanks,
In the notes of banks,
Whose Funds have all learn’d “the Art of Sinking.”

O yes! O yes!
Can any body guess
What the devil has become of the Treasury wonder?
It has Pitt’s name on ‘t,
All brass, in the front,
And R–b–ns–n’s, scrawl’d with a goose-quill under.