The Great — Agricultural Show
Hurrah, my lads, this is the day,
When tens of thousands haste away;
Rich and poor, high and low,
Are off to the Agricultural Show.
CHORUS.
Sing the ploughboy’s song,
Dance the milkman’s dance,
What glorious fun, away they run,
Kicking up their heels in the morning.
Heigho! away they go,
Jolly young fellows all of a row,
Don’t get kissing the girls you know,
At the Agricultural Show.
Now at the Show some sights you’ll find,
To delight the eye and improve the mind,
Carts, waggons, patent ploughs,
Horses, bulls, and Alderney cows.
There’s scythes, sickles, forks and rakes,
Ganders, turkeys, ducks and drakes,
Chickens, hens, and cocks that crow,
Is seen at the Agricultural Show.
There’s buckets, churns, milk-pails,
Washing tubs, and Chowbent nails;
All sorts of flowers and fruit that grow,
At the Agricultural Show.
There is some young men got on the spree,
And lushey got as they could be,
An old cobler they met, they made him so drunk,
That he went to smoke his short pipe at the pump.
A man from London brought his wife,
Indeed it is true upon my life,
To tell you all that she can do,
She can lick Jem Mace and Heenan too.
From miles around they come by train,
Into the town to see the game;
And the country lads are always right,
They won’t go home till broad daylight.
Two or three machines of every kind,
To go by water or by wind;
Some to stop old people’s tongues,
And one to grind old people young.
There are Lancashire clogs and Cheshire cheese,
London bugs and Suffolk fleas,
You cannot sleep a wink at night,
They are such devils for to fight.
There’s a farmer’s daughter,—sweet eighteen,
With nineteen hoops in her crinoline;
It’s just a mile round the brim of her hat,
She has got a cock-eye and a hump on her back.
Triumphal arches I’ll be bound,
Decorating —— —— town;
With hearts so light and spirits gay,
Hark! how the bands of music play.
Some young ladies dress’d in white,
Will be stopping out all night;
If you should wink why they will wait,
Upon the road by the turnpike gate.
Oh, lovely night, when all alone,
The lads and lasses toddling home;
In a few months’ time the girls will show
The game was played coming from the Show.
The farmers’ lads will you not mind,
The factory girls will dress so fine,
They’ll go and leave the silk machine,
To make little boys and girls by steam.