Thanks, Malcolm. Here are the lyrics.

THE SLAP-BUM TAILOR

I'll sing you a song, it'll please you full well
Of a slap-bum tailor in London did dwell
One day with his neighbour fell in a sad rage,
And for slapping her bum she was put in a rage.

CHORUS
Oh, the poor tailor, pity the tailor
For slapping her bum he was put in limbo.
Oh, the poor tailor, pity the tailor.

This woman was a dealer in second-hand clothes;
One day in the street with a carpet she goes.
She began for to shake and to toss in the wind:
'Good lord,' says the tailor, 'Your dust will me blind.'

'I value thee not, at my door I will stand,
For a tailor is but the ninth part of a man.'
So as he was sewing and taking long stitches
The dust flew about him and spoiled his new breeches.

One day in a passion he called her a whore,
Then he jumped off his board and he run out of door;
He fell on his knee, crying, 'Come, madam, come,'
Then he turned up her clothes and he well slapped her bum.

The streets and the lanes was all of an uproar;
He banged her so hard till her buttocks was sore.
Some they did laugh and some did cry shame;
They raised such a mob till the constables came.

Then straight to the justice they took him with speed,
And told how he'd served this poor woman indeed;
They told he had beat her and slapped her bum,
When before the justice the tailor did come.

'For slapping her bum,' the justice replied,
'Seven days in the jail the tailor shall lie;
The poor woman's so ill she can't get out of bed,
So on bread and water the rogue shall be fed.'

So now the poor tailor in limbo do lie;
He'll remember the carpet when the dust it do fly.
The lads make their game, crying, 'Run, tailor, run,
She's a—shaking the carpet, run and slap her bum.'^^


ninth part of a man: Nine tailors make a man,' says the adage (though it is probably a corruption of 'Nine tellers make a man: a church bell tolled nine times indicates the death of a man)

Although he apparently has a legitimate grievance against a woman who insults him and spoils his work, the tailor's rough justice earns him seven days in limbo (prison).

Source: A Book of British Ballads, Roy Palmer, 1980

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Click to play

^^