I used to sing the version that minstrel posted when we were kids in England in the early fifties. It was used as a skipping song as in those pre-car days groups of us would get out in the street with a long rope and chant while someone turned the rope and we took turns at skipping. The words we used were almost the same except the last line of the chorus was "Sambo pegged out". In those days, the favourite school reader for five year olds was a book called "Little Black Sambo" and it was the closest any of us got to knowing anything about black people as there were very few living in England then. The book was withdrawn for a long while because it was considered racist as Sambo was considered a derogatory name (so I believe). I saw it again recently though here in Australia so I guess we've either become more racist or more tolerant - I'm not sure which.