Widford Mole

The Mole That Worketh Underground
To the Editor of the Herts Guardian

Sir- Who turned up twenty-six mountains at Widford? Why, the underground mole! Who grubbed under the gravestones in the churchyard? Eadem impia talpa! Why, the very same red-snouted velvet-waistcoated gentleman. Nobody says the mole does not work very hard (if this be a virtue); but it cannot be denied, even by his friends, that he is voracious, grasping, pugnacious, and unscrupulous. If he fight with his own brother he will bite and devour him and eat every bit up.

Who printed ‘Compliments of the Season’, which were sent to the good people at Widford, by the underground railway, on New Year’s Day? The printer put no name, Mr. Mole. You know who he was? Who addressed the envelopes? And who chuckled as he put them in the pillar box? It looks very much like the work of the underground mole. It was not exactly the work of one who does things above board.

There is the street cad who bawls out, “Who stole my donkey?’ and then runs around the corner and sneaks in a doorway. Is not this the same mole who chalks up ‘No Popery’ and then runs away? Who ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built? Why, don’t we all know?

There is one good thing- Englishmen do not admire vermin and our cousins over the water shun the skunk.  The gardener puts his heavy heel down in the mole’s head, and the rat that burrows beneath or floors is simply regarded as ‘hostis humani generis.’ What species of Englishmen, then, are those, who lend their countenance and approval to human vermin of this category? They must possess influence and attractive powers, or they would not draw within their vortex such kindred parasites as pander to their malignity and hatred. The hired bravo works simply as a wretched hireling and not for the gratification of his own envy and malice, vermin though he be. But of all the crafty, voracious, ruthless, and unscrupulous pests of society, who is the most pernicious of vermin? Why, the Master Mole, who works underground, burrows under the threshold of our homesteads, invades the sanctuary of our hearths and filtches away our good name under cover of darkness.                                    LAPIDIS
5^th January, 1883.