Printed handbill anti-Catholic poem by Mary Frances Tupper of Albury, titled 'The Ritualists, Beware! They are Fooling Thee.'

On one side of a piece of wove paper, 15.5 x 9.5 cm. In fair condition, on aged paper, with one creased corner and a small nick at the head. The drop-head title is in capitals, with the second line having only the opening quotation marks (before the initial word 'BEWARE'). The poem is 29 lines long, with three seven-line stanzas followed by an eight-line one. At the foot of the poem: 'Albury. Mary Frances Tupper.' The first stanza reads 'The stamp of Rome is on their heart, | Take care! take care! | They play the Jesuits' crafty part, | Beware! beware! | With subtle glance and wily tongue, | They taint the souls of old and young. | Trust them not: they are fooling thee.' Sir Thomas Phillipp's fervent anti-Catholicism is described in Mumby's 'Phillipps Studies'. Mary Frances Tupper's only other published work, in 1864, appears to be the volume she published with her sisters Ellin Isabelle and Margaret Elenora in 1864: 'Poems by Three Sisters'. Excessively scarce: the only copy on COPAC at the British Library. See Eric Holzenberg, 'The Middle Hill Press, A Checklist of the Horblit Collection' (Grolier Club, 1997), p.434.