The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #99668   Message #3523455
Posted By: Jim Dixon
06-Jun-13 - 11:29 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Songs from the Chartist movement
Subject: Lyr Add: THE CHARTISTS ARE COMING
From A History of British Socialism, Volume 2 by Max Beer (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1921), page 170:

[A broadside can be seen in the Bodleian collection, Firth c.14(184).]

THE CHARTISTS ARE COMING.
Tune—"The Bailiff Is Coming."

1. What a row and a rumpus there is I declare!
Tens of thousands are flocking from everywhere.
To petition the parliament onward they steer.
The Chartists are coming, oh dear, oh dear,
To demand equal justice, their freedom and right.
Pump-handles and broom-sticks, lawk, how they can fight!
The nation, they say, is overwhelmed with grief—
A peck loaf for twopence and four pounds of beef!

Chorus.—Hurrah for old England and liberty sweet,
The land that we live in and plenty to eat!
We shall ever remember this wonderful day.
See, the Chartists are coming; get out of the way!

2. Such a number together was never yet seen.
Hurrah for the Charter and God save the Queen!
And when that Charter Old England has got,
We'll have stunning good beer at three-halfpence a pot,
A loaf for a penny, a pig for a crown,
And gunpowder tea at five farthings a pound.
Instead of red herrings we'll live on fat geese,
And lots of young women at twopence apiece.

3. The bakers and grocers, hark how they do laugh,
With dustmen and coal-heavers armed with a staff!
Five thousand old women, oh, how they do sing,
With frying-pans, fenders, and big rolling-pins!
There's Russell, and Bobby, old Nosey and Hume,
With pistol, bayonet, musket and broom.
Load away, fire away, chatter and jaw,
Shoot at a donkey and knock down a crow.

4. See the lads of Old Erin for liberty crow,
Repeal of the Union and Erin-go-bragh!
Peace and contentment, then none we can blame.
Plenty of labour, and paid for the same;
Some are rolling in riches and luxury too,
While millions are starving, with nothing to do.
Through the nation prosperity soon will be seen.
Hurrah for the Charter and God save the Queen!

5. Such constables there are in London, now mark,
Tailor and shoemaker, labourer and clerk,
Gaslightman, pickpocket, fireman too,
Greengrocer, hatter, pork-butcher and Jew;
Lollipop merchants and masons a lot,
And the covey that hollers 'Baked taters all hot.'
They are sworn to protect us and keep well the peace,
To frighten the Chartists and help the police.