I have never taken it that the little wee drummer knocked flat as your shoe in Arthur McBryde was dead ~~ just knocked down. Still, it does seem at that an unnecessary piece of violence towards a juvenile bystander who was only there to do his job ~~ drawing the potential audiences attention so that they would listen to the sergeant's spiel.

Presumably the recruiting party were on the way to recruit somewhere; tho where they expected to find the sort of crowd appropriate for recruiting activities on Xmas day, traditionally a festival spent at home with the family, not any sort of fair-day, is not quite clear.

But I realise I have followed Al into a drift about some anomalies in a song other than that with which this thread is concerned.

Sorry.

~Michael~