That now to serve for sailors any furrin’ scum will do.
And if a crew you muster,
P’rhaps of English there’s a cluster,
But there’s Chinamen and Lascars, and there’s Coolies in a row,
All a-chattering in their lingo,
’Till it’s precious hard, by jingo,
To hear aboard a British ship the good old “Yo, heave ho!”
They say I shouldn’t grumble, seeing that which I complain of
Is all owing, as they tell us, to, “a known commercial cause”;
But it’s not much consolation to a chap what fears starvation