The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #40625 Message #1897085
Posted By: Joe Offer
30-Nov-06 - 09:05 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Unfortunate Miss Bailey
Subject: RE: Origins: Unfortunate Miss Bailey
Mr. Scanner has one more for you. Not much different, but worthwhile. This is from Folks Songs of Canada, by Edith Fowke and Richard Johnston.
UNFORTUNATE MISS BAILEY
1. A captain bold in Halifax who dwelt in country quarters
Seduced a maid who hanged herself one Monday in her garters.
His wicked conscience smited him, he lost his stomach daily;
He took to drinking rafafia, and thought upon Miss Bailey
O Miss Bailey! Unfortunate Miss Bailey!
2. One night, betimes, he went to bed, for he had caught a fever.
Said he, "I am a handsome man, and I'm a gay deceiver!"
His candle lust at twelve o'clock began to burn quite palely;
A ghost stepped up to his bedside and said, "Behold Miss Bailey!"
O Miss Bailey! Unfortunate Miss Bailey!
3. "Avaunt, Miss Bailey," then he cried, "You can't affright me, really."
"Dear Captain Smith," the ghost replied, "You've used me ungenteely.
The coroner's 'quest goes hard with me because I've acted frailly,
And Parson Biggs won't bury me, though I'm a dead Miss Bailey."
O Miss Bailey! Unfortunate Miss Bailey!
4. "Dear Ma'am," said he, "since you and I accounts must once for all close,
I have a one-pound note in my regimental small clothes.
'Twill bribe the sexton for your grave." The ghost then vanished gaily,
Crying, "Bless you, wicked Captain Smith! Remember poor Miss Bailey."
O Miss Bailey! Unfortunate Miss Bailey!
notes:The gay little song about the unfortunate Miss Bailey and the wicked Captain Smith was probably brought to this continent by British soldiers serving in the colonies. The tune was well known in England, where it was used for at least three other songs during the eighteenth century: "No more, Fair Virgins, Boast Your Power", "The Golden Days of Good Queen Bess", and "Ally Croaker". The words are credited to George Colman, an English dramatist (1732-1794), and were very popular in England for at least fifty years.
By the early part of the nineteenth century the song had also spread throughout North America, for when Samuel Woodworth wrote his famous ballad of the War of 1812, "The Hunters of Kentucky", the old broadsheets bore the inscription: "To the air of Miss Baily". The original setting for the story was, of course, in England, but when soldiers sang it on this side of the Atlantic they would naturally associate Captain Smith with Halifax, Nova Scotia.
"Ratafia" (in the first stanza) is a powerful drink mode from peach kernels, brandy, and wine. "Regimental small clothes" (in the last stanza) refers to the tight-fitting knee breeches worn in the eighteenth century.