The smallpox scare

How it originated in Sydney.
A story of putridoxcinnation.
(Truth, Brisbane, 1913) (Follow the link for the extended verses that accompany this; I include a couple below.)

In our Southern clime, in a healthy time, when trade was slack with the coffin-makers,
When the hearses’ teams chewed their oats in dreams, and a lifeless trade was the undertakers’,
Came a grisly pair labeled ‘Death’ and ‘Scare’–for the visit the last bedmakers thanked ’em–
And settled them down for a time in town, in a crazy Sydney doctor’s sanctum.
……….
What was left of the scare was a small affair not calling for further consideration–
There was no smallpox. IT WAS PUTRID OX that menaced Old Sydney with decimation.