With a Pinch of Salt

I've been thinking about my post last week, and what an incongruity there is between the epergne that was awarded to the Campbells, and the bushrangers who attacked them in their home. I am often inspired by the authors I read and I am currently reading both 1788: Comprising of A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay and A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson by Watkin Tench, and Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston. 

While describing the behaviour of the convicts in Port Jackson, Tench lamented that they were punished for stealing food. Rations were systematically reduced as food was scarce, but the convicts still had to toil for long hours in high temperatures "without adequate refreshment." Those who stole food were frequently flogged and chained together. Tench decries, 

"The first step in every community which wishes to preserve honesty should be to set the people above want. The throes of hunger will ever prove too powerful for integrity to withstand."

This is as true now as it was in 1788, or in 1864 when the bushrangers stole from the landowners. And it seems trenchantly symbolic that the victims were awarded an ornament designed for displaying and sharing condiments in turn created to enhance and complement fancy food. With this and the pithy wit of Brian Bilston 'the poet laureate of Twitter' in mind, I crafted the following (with apologies to both).

You were always keen as mustard,

To spice things up,

Not to curry favour

But to rub salt in the wounds.

So you got us all in a pickle

Then sat back gingerly

All big cheese and toffee-nosed,

As though butter wouldn't melt.