Railway navvies "strike" with horrid din

The Darling Downs Gazette [Toowoomba] Saturday 23 February 1867

Ipswich School of Arts.—The twentieth entertainment given by the members of the Ipswich Elocution
Class, in the School of Arts, on Thursday evening, was a decided success : the weather being beautiful, and the moon at the full, there was a very numerous and fashionable audience. The following prologue, composed and delivered by Mr. C. F. Chubb, was warmly applauded—

In these dull times when everybody's cry
Is of bad debts, and bills, with mouth awry ;
And trade and commerce, which were wont of yore
To blow their trumpets on the Queensland shore,
Now sickly lie with faint and "bated breath,"
And enterprise assumes the hue of death ;
White Treasury Notes come forth so  spick and span,"
Lead a moth's life and are not seen again ;
While railway navvies "strike" with horrid din,
Rush to that "Bourne" "whence none return" with tin;
Whilst every "Groom" and "Taylor" in the nation,
Goes into " Fits" about a railway station ;
And northern patriots, from their muddy shore,
Would deluge "Warwick"—if they could—with "Gore,"    
So jealous are they of its rail diminutive,
Begrudging e'en poor "Dalby" its "carminative ;"
While M.L.C.s to posts of state aspire.
And M.L.A.'s dispute who's "greatest liar,"  
Like quarrelling school-boy's when their blubber's o'er.
Rush off, like sneaks, and tell "their Governor ;"
When railway plans and nations, dearly bought,
By Mr. "Watts"-is-name, are set at naught,
And picks and spades and Sabbath-breaker's tools
Drown in their din the hymns of Sunday schools ;
In fact, when dear young Queensland racks with ill.
And everything seems going to the de'il—
Let us, to-night, forget our woes awhile ;
Let all our faces wear a joyful smile.
Our Elocution Class, so long thought dead,
Once more uplifts, with greeting form, its head,
And, as the Lernman Hydra did of yore,
Presents seven faces on this Thespian floor.
Most are old friends, some others may be new,
The lot of all is once to make debut
Our hearts all echo but the one desire—
Your smiles to win, your plaudits to inspire.
Should we succeed, our victory is won ;
It is our sole reward ; my task is done. —Q. Times.