Huddersfield Chronicle (04/Nov/1893) - Why and Wherefore?

The following is a transcription of a historic newspaper article and may contain occasional errors. If the article was published prior to 1 June 1957, then the text is likely in the Public Domain.

Why and Wherefore?

Who would be a Councillor,
Who would be a Mayor,
Who would be an Alderman,
In elevated chair;
When none but one strait, heartless lot
Divide the honours’ spoils,
And choke ambition in the bud,
No matter how it toils?
Who would serve a town for years,
Who would nobly strive
To elevate their native place,
That all in it might thrive;
When no high state is possible,
When party spirit blinds,
When party ignorance discards
The work of noble minds?
Who would interest himself,
Who would ever try,
In all that tends to betterment,
To raise his town on high;
When every post is swallowed up,
When each committee’s chair
Is held by the unscrupulous,
Who by the Rads, will swear?
Who would stay in such a place,
Who would associate
With such a crew whose meanness is
But equalled by their hate;
Whose chief ambition is to grasp,
And hold till end of days,
Each coign of honours’ vantage,
Feed on each others praise?
What but dead level can there be
On such a town attendant,
What else but mediocrities,
Servile, non-independent,
Can rule the roost in such a place,
Where the chief honours’ chair
Has for two decades and a half,
Contained a Liberal Mayor?

CID.