Madame Eulalie’s Rare Plums

AS  I was passing through the Park
In 1912 AD
I heard a sudden rifle-shot,
Which rather startled me.
I said. “Policeman, what was that?”
He answered, courteously:

“It’s that there persecuted cove,
The Licenser of Plays.
Those dramatists they wait for him
With guns where’er he strays.
We winks at it; for Genius, Sir,
Will have its little ways.

“Another shot? I rayther think
That’s Mr Barker. He
And Mr Shaw comes every day,
Each to his special tree,
And tries to pick the Censor off
As he goes home to tea.

“My chum, old Billy Jones, what’s on
The Cambridge Circus beat,
Tells me they’re playing the same old game
All along Oxford Street.
And Mr Garnett’s shooting is,
He says, especial neat.

“And Mr Redford? Well, ’e don’t
Seem very much upset.
He don’t appear to think that there’s
Much call for him to fret:
For, as he very justly says,
’E ain’t abolished yet.”