“The Belfast Corporation voted themselves free ‘passes’ on the new city tramways, on 1st January, 1905.” — City Press.
If you want gear, then never fear
To grab and gather pelf;
But mind the penny, one or many,
The pound will mind itself.
Our Councilmen of six times ten,
The trustees of the people,
All sworn to ward our gold, and guard
The town from sewer to steeple,
Have bought in fine the tramway line.
And all its skinny horses;
And ere they die may 'lectrify
The company’s old hearses.
But first they’ve tried and ’lectrified
The people of the city
By issuing “pass” to every ass
In office or committee.
Poor men may toil, and women moil.
Their rags and hunger hiding,
While paying for each councillor
On plush and velvet riding.
Our people work like Jap or Turk
For barely food and clothing;
They’re so oppress’t they can’t protest,
Nor show their silent loathing
For belted knights and baronites,
And merchant princes many.
Who take their tram nor care a d------
Who pays their wretched penny.
They’ll pay no more, nor go footsore,
But show their “pass” and snigger,
And tax the poor, and crowd the car.
And grin like any nigger!
The horses cheap can hardly creep
Around from streets to stations.
Yet councillors now load the cars
With their huge corporations.
No doubt they’re great and much elate,
But then it’s hardly funny
That they should be so deuced free
With other people’s money!
Great City Fathers! one soon gathers
How stupid you must think us,
That we should vote and never note
The way you all can blink us.
But are you not the meanest lot
That ever ruled a city,
To tax the poor and load the car
With neither shame nor pity?
To grab and gather pelf;
But mind the penny, one or many,
The pound will mind itself.
Our Councilmen of six times ten,
The trustees of the people,
All sworn to ward our gold, and guard
The town from sewer to steeple,
Have bought in fine the tramway line.
And all its skinny horses;
And ere they die may 'lectrify
The company’s old hearses.
But first they’ve tried and ’lectrified
The people of the city
By issuing “pass” to every ass
In office or committee.
Poor men may toil, and women moil.
Their rags and hunger hiding,
While paying for each councillor
On plush and velvet riding.
Our people work like Jap or Turk
For barely food and clothing;
They’re so oppress’t they can’t protest,
Nor show their silent loathing
For belted knights and baronites,
And merchant princes many.
Who take their tram nor care a d------
Who pays their wretched penny.
They’ll pay no more, nor go footsore,
But show their “pass” and snigger,
And tax the poor, and crowd the car.
And grin like any nigger!
The horses cheap can hardly creep
Around from streets to stations.
Yet councillors now load the cars
With their huge corporations.
No doubt they’re great and much elate,
But then it’s hardly funny
That they should be so deuced free
With other people’s money!
Great City Fathers! one soon gathers
How stupid you must think us,
That we should vote and never note
The way you all can blink us.
But are you not the meanest lot
That ever ruled a city,
To tax the poor and load the car
With neither shame nor pity?
From Antrim Idylls and other Poems
by W Clarke Robinson (published 1907).
Image: Belfast City Tramways Horsecar No 23 taken in 1905 (after the corporation take-over). The car is still in the livery of the Belfast Street Tramways Company. From the National Tramway Museum.
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