The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #8172 Message #3921710
Posted By: Lighter
02-May-18 - 06:14 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: The Dying Hobo
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Dying Hobo
The same text (except for "I'll not have to work") appeared a few months earlier in the Alliance (Neb.) Herald, May 26, 1910, Memorial Day Section, p. 10.
Colavita's "chorus" is simply the second stanza of the Herald's version.
The version in The Western Liberal (Lordsburg, N.M.), March 26, 1915, is virtually identical except for the location: "a Lordsburg water tank."
The paper received the poem from "Officer L. D. Walters of the Southern Pacific."