HONEST WORKING MAN

chorus:
'Way down in East Cape Breton, where they knit the sock and mitten
Chezzetcook is represented by the husky black and tan.
May they never be rejected, and home rule be protected
And always be connected with the honest working man!

1. What raises high my dander, next door lives a Newfoundlander
Whose wire (wife? - Bee) you cannot stand her, since high living she began,
Along with the railroad rackers, also the codfish packers,
Who steal the cheese and crackers from the honest working man.

2. When leaves fall in the autumn and fish freeze to the bottom,
They take a three-ton schooner and go round the western shore;
They load her with provisions, hard tack and codfish mizzens,
The like I never heard of since the downfall of Bras d'Or.

3. The man who mixes mortar gets a dollar and a quarter,
The sugar-factory worker, he gets a dollar ten,
While there's my next-door neighbor, who subsists on outside labour,
In the winter scarcely earns enough to feed a sickly hen.

4. They cross the Bay of Fundy, they reach her ona Monday:
Do you see my brother Angus? Now tell me if you can.
He was once a soap-box greasman, but now he is a policeman
Because he could not earn a living as an honest working man.

Sandy, I think meself is right - the verses are not nonsense, and now I read through them carefully, I notice references to various parts of Nova Scotia. Besides Cape Breton, Chezzetcook, Western Shore, Bay of Fundy, there is a reference to the sugar factory, which I think Woodside (outside Dartmouth) had the only one (Atlantic Sugar). It does not appear to me to be a song about just CB, but about Nova Scotia, and various inequities in workers pay and status.

Note: one connection the Eastern Shore (where Chezzetcook is) had with Cape Breton is that previous to 1950, roads on the ES were poor to non-existant, coastal boats were in use. Up to WWII, Cape Breton farmers exported food to the Eastern Shore.