Unless those claims can be proved inaccurate or wrong, Jon, I would be very happy to accept that account. What he wrote is sufficiently different to 'The Dying Girl's Lament' to warrant being called a new song and therefore no issue with copyrighting it. At worst it could be called a parody. It also takes 'St James Infirmary' use in the States back to before 1876 which is more relevant to this thread.

I'll have another look at my versions of TDC in respect of variation and see if that throws up any points of interest.