[“On glancing at any morning paper, and comparing the list of ‘Persons Wanted’ with that of ‘Situations Wanted,’ one realises how very much greater the demand is than the supply. Especially is this observed with regard to the much discusses domestic servant.” – News item.]

Prithee, hearken to our ditty,
We are objects for your pity,
We have scoured the blessed city,
   We have search with might and main,
We are worn and weak and weary,
And our eyes upon the dreary
Search grow watery and bleary –-
   Oh, where are you, Mary Jane!

Underneath the “Persons Wanted,”
Baits and privileges we’ve vaunted,
And the “Registries” we’ve haunted,
   Yea, we’ve haunted them in vain;
You can have alternate Fridays,
All the holidays and high days,
We will borrow, beg, and buy days,
   Just to give you, Mary Jane.

Followers within the kitchen
You can have –- big cops, an’ sich, an’
Anyone you feel like hitchin’
   To your regal, courtly train;
All the missus’s best bonnets
You can have, and finger-sonnets
On our Lipp, or thump upon its
   Patient keyboard, Mary Jane.

Oh, the kitchen range is dirty,
And the “boss” is growing “shirt,”
And there’s fully five-and-thirty
   Smudges on the window pane;
Plates unwashed and dinners burning,
Wile our suit you’re coldly spurning,
Prithee, sweet one, heed our yearning,
   Oh, where are you, Mary Jane!

"T. O'R."
The Gadfly, 5 December 1906, p817