The Coopers and the Dockyard Men are all a going to strike.
And soon there’ll be the devil to pay, without a little Mike,
The farming men of Suffolk have lately called a go,
And swear they’ll have their wages rose, before they reap or sow.
We are all familiar with the carefully got up mendicants who infest the streets of London, with their mournful howls—how that they are “Frozen-out gardeners,” or “Have got no work to do,” etc., etc.; and in the early part of the century they were more numerous than now, as the police were not so efficient. One sample of this style of ballad must suffice.
THE MECHANIC’S APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC.
Give attention awhile to my rhymes,
Good people of every degree,
I assure you these critical times
Have reduced me to great poverty.
I’m a tradesman reduced to distress,
Dame Fortune on me long has frown’d,
And that is the cause, I confess,
Which compels me to roam up and down.
Chorus.
Then good people attend to my rhymes,
And pity a tradesman reduced;
For appealing to you in these times,
I submissively hope you’ll excuse.
I once did in happiness dwell,
With my family around me, at home;
And little, (the truth I will tell)
Did I think I’d have cause for to roam.
But misfortune, she owed me a grudge,
And entered in my Cottage door,
And caused me in sorrow to mourn,
And my misery long to deplore.
Mechanics are now at a stand,
And trade, in all quarters, is bad,
They’re complaining all over the land,
And their children are hungry and sad.
Travel Britain wherever you will,
You may behold everything dead,
The tradesmen are all standing still,
And their children are crying for bread.
My family now weep in distress,
With cold and with hunger they cry,
Which grieves me to see, I confess,
No food, nor employment have I.
The Weather is cold and severe,
And I do in sorrow lament;
I have no food for my Children dear,
And my goods are all taken for rent.