From desert Tartary to the east
From sweltering Berbers of Asia
Through Russia’s poisonous swamps;
Cholera from the wild margin
Comes wrathful into the country,
O wear warm stockings!
In Moscow it has night quarters
In Petersburg, the swampman has nearly
To be hopelessly terrified
Because the pestilence spares drifters
As little as their betters,
O wear woolly socks!
Thence is cholera indeed
Just a few weeks ago
Nearing the Prussian border;
From Minister Auerswald came
To young and old the cabinet order:
O let tea be brewed for you!!
Because cholera and republic
They are the greatest misfortune
Yours is not the primrose path.
Beggarly and princely blood alike
You both feel very thirsty
O wear underpants!
(Kladderadatsch, Berlin, 1848)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 