The Newcastle Subscription Mill
tune- Newcastle Ale 1814

While Europe rejoices at Bonny's defeat,
And Cossacks pursue him o'er plain and o're hill,
On the banks of the Tyne, in a quiet retreat,
I'll write you a ballad about the new Mill.
To be built by subscription, of famous description;
Ye pale-fac'd mechanics, come join in the club,
Whose bowels are yearning at ev'ning and morning,
And you will get plenty of cheap, wholesome grub.

The millers their spite have already display'd,
And dusty-mouth'd Meal-mongers pettish are grown,
That a plan should be thought of to injure their trade,
A mill that will grind for one half of the town;
Where joyful, you'll hie, for wheat or for rye--
There some trusty fellow your meal-bags will fill;
No mixture of chalk* your intestines to caulk,
but plain, honest dealing practis'd at the Mill.

There's Puff-cake, the baker, too cries out Alack!
If this plan should succeed, I'll have customers few;
And he whinges and whines as he sets up his back
To twirl his long rolling-pin over the dough;
The theme he resumes, with vexation he fumes,
And deems the projector a deep-scheming elf;
His customers gone, he'll soon be undone,
His mixture compound he may swallow himself.

Of Gripe-grain, the corn-factor, much could be sung,
And of Broad-brim, the Quaker, a guilt spotted blade,
Who both in a halter deserves to be strung,
For the housands they've starv'd by the forestalling trade:
But some future time may produce a new rhyme,
Wherein I propose their true features to draw;
Meanwhile ev'ry man give his aid to the plan,
And there'll soon be a down-coming market-Huzza!
 

About the month of Novermber, 1813 (according to the Courier newspaper) a victualler
for the Navy was convicted in adulterating the biscut with chalk and Portland stone, and
suffered the penalty of a very heavy fine. The audacious fellow afterwards boasted, that
he had cleared more money by the practice than the fine amounted to.

-H. Robson-In: The Newcastle Song Book or Tyne-Side Songster., W&T Fordyce
Newcastle Upon Tyne.