Thanks to Barry Finn

The words are not exactly as my mother sang it, but it scans with the tune she sang it to, so I'm sure it is the same song. I am interested in songs that have a "bar room ballad" touch that was designed to make the drinker more maudlin and drink more. I don't know when the Babes in the Woods song was originated but it was surely used in the bars and saloons of the late 19th century. I have this straight from my grandmothers who remembered the times (but who never actually entered the bars, of course). Philip Hudson