Lyr Add: Then The Pipe Went Out

Subject: Lyr Add: Then The Pipe Went Out
From: cnd
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 09:42 PM

I bought an old book entitled "Lew Hawkins In Black and White" a while back while searching for the lyrics of My Nellie's Mince Pies, following a lead that the song was written by Lew Hawkins. The entire book is a bit over a hundred pages of very dated 1900s comedy, with a handful of songs and poems thrown in. As a warning, a chunk of it is racially based, as the example below is.

THEN THE PIPE WENT OUT

One happy hour, in sweet repose, a dreamy maiden lay,
Where Cupid whispered Love's sweet strains that bright midsummer day;
Far, far away in Fairyland, where love alone does reign,
As on a bed of roses, slept and dreamed that she was queen.
She dreamed that kings and monarchs bowed to her command;
She dreamed that she was ruler of the ocean and the land.
Beneath her feet lay precious stones, her path was paved with gold,
And Paradise alone was hers, with happiness untold.

The zephyrs sweet, they wafted through her golden, sunny hair,
And Venus in her loveliness with her could not compare.
She dreamed she was the fairest maiden born, beyond a doubt;
She started, she awoke, alas! and then the pipe went out.
She got up quickly, gasped for breath, her teeth were tightly clinched;
The Chinaman that cooked the dope said: "Sneak, the laundry's pinched."

Source: Lew Hawkins, Lew Hawkins In Black and White (1905), p. 23



The reason I bring this poem in particular up: I'm missing the humor. I get that it's about a girl being high on meth, and that part of the humor is her being high ending and the twinge of racial comedy at the end. But what is the closing line, referencing laundry, about? I don't get it. I've searched up the phrase "the laundry is pinched" to no avail, so I'm hoping someone here gets it.

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Note from Joe Offer: cnd says these are the only two verses from the song that the book contains.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Then The Pipe Went Out
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Aug 21 - 10:29 AM

possibly based on this poem?

http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/songster/52-then-the-pipe-went-out.htm