Huddersfield Chronicle (04/Oct/1892) - Let No Dog Bark

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.

LET NO DOG BARK.

Said the man with the great golden chain,
    ‘Tis we in the Council who know
Everything about everything,
    From the roof to the cellar below.

Outsiders may prate and may prattle
    “About what they know now’t about,”
But whatever we do, say, or think,
    We are right, without any doubt.

We admit that they know just a little,
    That is, they know how to pay,
But as for the spending of rates, sirs,
    It is we who must have the chief say.

We do things by stealth in the morning,
    Which at night we blush to find fame,
Yet onlookers, with cynical leer,
    Say ’tis they who see most of the game.

What of that, they are not “in the know,”
    They’ve ne’er cut and dried in committee,
They see what we do from afar,
    And their shortness of sight we can pity.

They may spend many hundreds of pounds,
    In perfecting their excellent schooling;
But it takes them a lifetime to learn
    How votes may be caught by fine fooling.

‘Twas very small learning we got,
    We are not overburdened with knowledge;
But we soon found the world to be ruled,
    Not with wisdom or learning from college.

Sufficient for us is to know,
    That outsiders are kept in the dark;
While we oft gambol and revel
    In schemes just at high-watermark.

We know there’s a few query askers,
    Whom we suffer to sit at our feet;
But these we can quash without trouble,
    By putting them in a back seat.

Let this then be a true warning
    To those who ’gainst us array
All their quizzical learning and skill,
    “Sufficient for them is — to pay.”

Lockwood
CID.