Printed Victorian handbill poem in Yorkshire dialect, titled 'On the Wing. By John Lawton.', speculating in a humorous style on the effects of successful transport by air.

1p., 12mo. Fair, on aged paper, with slight wear and loss at head. The leaf has been trimmed down to 21 x 16 cm., with rounded corners, around the poem's decorative border. The poem consists of 96 lines, in twelve eight-line stanzas; it is arranged in two columns beneath the title: 'ON THE WING. | BY JOHN LAWTON.' First stanza reads: 'I wor thinkin one neet wol sit i mi cheer, | Wot thowts enter sum people's pates; | Wot useful invenshuns they'n plan'd everywheer | To benefit people un states. | Locomotives un steomers I think yol find, | Un hundreds o things I might name, | Fast flitted e fancy throo somebody's mind, | Un war plann'd by sombody's brain.' The second stanza expands on the theme: 'Tho swift wi con travil, on land and on sea, | Discontent is still to be seen; | For sum want to travil o new-fanglt wey | Throo th'air in o flyin machine: | Un shud they succeed, as sum think ut they will, | In thus navigatin the air, | Streets un roads wod soon be desertud un still, | Un oytch thing wod look very quare.' Third stanza: 'One fellow is tryin to make o balloon | To go ogen th'wint, like o ship, | Un wen it is reddy, he'll start very soon, | Un go on o grand trial trip. | Then another I yerd on made sum big wings - | He sed he felt shure he cud fly: | He geet on o barn un adjusted his things, | Determin'd he'd have o good try.' The twelfth and last stanza reads: 'To think wot greyt changes this flyin wod bring | I fashuns, amusements, un trade, | Wod make sum foak deawtful iv onny sitch thing | In this world cud ever be made. | Fur my part, I expect to see flyin foak | Soon after I see flyin pigs; | Ur elephants makin gowd watches ov oak, | Ur crocodiles ridin i gigs.' This poem and its author are entirely untraced, with no record on WorldCat or COPAC.