The Dead Men's Song / Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its Author Young Ewing Allison

by Champion Ingraham Hitchcock

Louisville, Oct. 6, 1914.

SOME CLIPPINGS; and A LETTER

The controversial comments on Allison’s “Fifteen Men on the Dead Man’s Chest,” heretofore mentioned, appeared in The New York Times Book Review of September 20, 1914, and October 4, 1914, while the inquiry that precipitated the discussion was published July 26. The printed matter, verbatim et literatim, and the matter not printed, are subjoined:

July 26, 1914.

APPEALS TO READERS

EDWARD ALDEN.—Can some reader tell me if the verse or chorus of a pirate’s song, which Robert Louis Stevenson recites several times in whole or in part in “Treasure Island,” was original or quoted; and, if there are other verses, where they may be found? The lines as Stevenson gives them are:

Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest,

Yo-ho-ha and a bottle of rum;

Drink and the devil had done for the rest,