"Rebecca Riots in 19th Century Wales"
This from John Holloway's 'Oxford Book of Local Verse
There were hundereeeds of songs made commenting on the political situation throughout the 19th century, some, like this one, couched in the same language, with its Classical references.
The riots were the subject of a great novel by my favourite Welsh novelist, Alexander Cordell

Verses from the anti-turnpike riots; Pembrokeshire, 1843
Rebecca and her Daughters

Where is Rebecca?,that daughter of my story!
Where is her dwelling? Oh where is her haunt?
Her name and her exploits will be complete in history
With famed Amazonians or great'John of Gaunt.'
Dwells she mid mountains, almost inaccessible,
Hid in some cavern or grotto secure,
Does she inhabit this miscreant Jezebel,
Halls of the rich, or the cots of the poor?
With exquisite necklace of hemp we'd bedeck her
Could we but capture the dreadful Rebecca!
snubb'd] scolded, rebuked junk] lumps of meat 498

Who is Rebecca? She seems hydra-headed
Or Argus-like, more than two eyes at command,
The mother of hundreds, the great unknown, dreaded
By peace-loving subjects in Cambria's land.
Unknown her sex too, they may be discovered
To all our bewildered astonishments soon
To be, Mother Hubbard, who lived in a cupboard,
Great Joan of Arc's ghost or the man in the moon.
'Twould puzzle the brains of a Johnson or Seeker
To make out thy epicene nature, Rebecca!

Who are thy daughters? in parties we meet them,
Which proves them of ages quite fit to come out,
Some Balls it appears were preparing to greet them,
Which soon would have ended of course in a rout.
They are not musicians, though capital dancers,
So puzzled they seem to encounter each bar,
But, Shade of Terpsichore! call for the lancers,
How fastly they'll step out with matchless eclat;
The wonderful prophet who flourished in Mecca
No heaven could boast like thy daughters, Rebecca!

What are your politics? Some people say for you,
Travelling System you always will aid,
And 'twould appear the far happiest day for you,
Throwing wide open the road to free trade.
You cannot with Whigs take up any position,
If what I assert here is known as a fact;
That you give decided and stern opposition
To all that may hinge on the new Postage Act.
The State is in danger, and nothing can check her
From ruin with politics like yours, Rebecca.

Farewell, Rebecca! cease mischievous planning,
Whoever you might be, Maid, Spirit or Man;
Lest haply your days should be ended by hanging,
And sure you're averse to that sad New Gate plan.
Oh no! to the drop you may never be carted,
No end so untimely e'er happen to you:
But change, and be honest, and when you're departed
May have from the Sexton, the Toll that is due.
My muse is at fault, I may pinch and may peck her
But all to no purpose, Good-bye then, Rebecca!

Amazonians] Amazons, legendary women warriors
Argus] hundred-eyed Greek demigod
Terpsichore] Muse of dancing

Shades of cross-dressing in this, from Walter Pardon

The Dandy Man
From the singing of Walter Pardon.

When I was twenty years of age a-courting I did go,
All with a dandy barber's clerk, he filled my heart with woe,
I never ceased to rue the day when I became his wife,
He can't do right by day nor night, 'tis true upon my life.

Young women all, take my advice and mark what I do say,
If ever you wed with a dandy man you'll ever rue the day.

And when he goes to bed at night like an elephant he lays,
He never takes his britches off, he sleeps in women,s stays,
His mouth is like a turnpike gate, his nose a yard and a half,
And if you saw his dandy legs I'm sure they'd make you laugh.

Young women all....            

It was upon last Christmas day, as true as I'm a sinner,
And as he stayed at home that day he swore he'd cook the dinner,
He took out all the plums and flour and mixed them in his hat,
And in the pot upon the lot, the rogue he boiled some fat.

Young women all.....         

It was last Sunday morning, all by his own desire,
My leghorn bonnet and my cap he took to light the fire,
He took the tea things off the shelf to clean off all the dirt,
He washed them in the chamber pot and wiped them on his shirt.

Young women all....         

One day, when I was very ill he went to buy a fowl,
He bought a pair, I don't know where, a magpie and an owl,
He put them in the pot to boil tied in a dirty cloth,
He boiled the lot, all feathers and guts and called it famous broth.

Young women all....            

As we were walking up the street, 'twas arm in arm together,
It very first began to snow, he said, what rainy weather,
And if he saw a hackney coach he'd swear it was a gig,
He cannot tell, I do declare, a donkey from a pig.

Young women all..

Now you may talk of dandy wives, but tell me if you can,
Where there's a dandy woman who can match a dandy man,
He's a dirty rogue and a lazy fool, and how I bless the day,
If they would send my dandy man straight off to Botany Bay.

Young women all take my advice and mark what I do say,
If ever you wed with a dandy man you'll ever rue the day.

Not many of these songs are about transvestitism - there is one from Northern Ireland about a soldier who is given a suit of women's clothes to escape from her father, an army officer - will try to find it Later
Jim Carroll