I found a transcription at mustrad.org.uk, but I also listened repeatedly to a recording and made several corrections. Here's what I ended up with. Note that this version has 3 verses that are missing from the DT version that Fantum posted above.


SHOOTING GOSHEN'S COCKS UP
As recorded by George Maynard on "Ye Subjects of England" (1976)

If you'll listen for a while, a story I will tell you,
And if you don't attention pay, I'm sure I can't compel you;
But as you've asked me for to sing, I'd better start at once.
I'll tell you how I got six weeks and my mate got two months.

With me row-dow-dow,
Fal-the-riddle-oddy,
With me row-dow-dow.

Now, it happened on one Monday night: two more, myself and Clarkie
Went out a-pheasant shooting in a place we knew was narky.
Three keepers rushed upon the spot when guns began to rattle,
And our two mates they'd done a bunk and left us to the battle.

We tried our best to get away, but vain was our endeavour.
We should not have been taken if we all had stuck together,
But me and Clarkie was captured and taken to the lock-up,
And charged before inspector Irish for shooting Goshen's cocks up.

At ten o'clock next morning to the town hall we was taken.
We thought our case would settled be, but we were quite mistaken.
We was put back upon remand 'til the fourteenth of November,
And if you've read the Croydon Times, I 'spect you will remember.

[When our] remand was at an end; for Croydon we came steering,
And soon before the magistrates we stood to have our hearing.
Our case it was so very clear, it did not want much trying.
When our time it was knocked down to us, our wives they started crying.

Now we asked them to propose a fine but that they would not sanction.
Then soon we knew our residence would be the public mansion.
The magistrates to me, I'll own, they acted like a neighbour.
They let me off with six weeks, but Clark two months hard labour.

Now four o'clock that afternoon, for Wandsworth jail we started.
Our friends were there to see us off; they all seemed broken-hearted.
Whilst rattling up to Wandsworth jail, our mind received a bewildering
About our future prospects of our wives and little children.

At Holloway, our clothes were searched and ev'rything was taken
Away from us, the warders thought, but they were quite mistaken;
For as I paced my lonely cell, I could not help but smile
To think I had deceived them; I'd got 'baccer all the while.

The first four weeks I was in jail, they put me grinding flour,
Likewise pumping water onto a lofty tower.
My strength it quickly did decrease; I thought it rather cruel
To make a man work harder on brown bread and water gruel.

On the twenty-fourth of December, my time it did expire.
When I got out, I had some scran; that's what I did require;
And when I had a drink of beer, I really felt quite merry,
But my mate he don't get out until the middle of January.