Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Railways, Transport, Commerce, Charlatanry, Morality

    Begins with an extract from the Daily Telegraph describing the falling profits of several southern railway companies, all of which increased their fares. The poem comments on this with the fable 'Whose moral proclaims that to make your gain stable, / You had best let it grow without forcing'—advice which the southern railway companies evidently did not heed. Proceeds to describe the sorry fate of a goose 'master' who was so desperate to increase the rate of production of golden eggs furnished by a goose, that he killed the latter believing it to contain more golden eggs in its bowels. Noting how the 'man-goose' found nothing inside the goose, draws further parallels between the 'man-goose' and railway directors, emphasising that if the latter 'cut up' their geese (the public) then 'they'll cease' and loose their eggs (profit).