HANDS AS THEY ARE SHOOK.

(_NEW STYLE._)

In healthier times, when friends would meet
Their friends in chamber, park, or street,
Each, as hereunder, each would greet.

Tour level hand went forth; you clasped
Your crony's; each his comrade's grasped--
If roughly, neither friend was rasped.

Such was the good old-fashioned one
Of honest British "How d'ye do?"
I think it manly still--don't you?

But _now_, when smug acquaintance hails
A set that would be "smart," but fails,
Another principle prevails.

The arm, in lifted curve displayed,
Droops limply o'er the shoulder-blade,
As needing some chirurgeon's aid:

The wrist is wrenched of JONES and BROWN,
Those ornaments of London Town;
Their listless fingers dribble down:

BROWN reaches to the knuckle-bones