The Following Dialogue, in Bad Prose, Was Overheard by the Person Who Now Attempts It in Bad Verse
(December, 1811.)
“Hey, Jacky, ma honey, hae ye seen the new money,
The money, that’s made, mun, at Newcastle town?
It’s bonie an’ breet, man, an’ tho’ it’s but leet, man,
Folks like it sae weel, that the notes are off flown.
“I frae the chap got, man, a score for a note, man;
An’ smash me! I thought him a thick headed feul;
T’ gie siller for paper, is sure a queer caper:
We knaw which is better, Jack, we were at skeul.”
“But, Will, I’ve a notion, you han’t seen the caution,37
The grocer folks up i’ their windows hae put;
They say they’ll be broken, if they take a token;
An’ seun that their shops they will hae for to shut.”
“Why, Jack, sure they’re feulish, to refuse them is cullish,
Why siller, man’s, siller, and paper’s but rags;
And as lang as we knaw that, there’s nane o’ them a’ that
Will make us put paper stead sill i’ wor bags.
“The bank there of Surtees, ye knaw how it hurt hus;
And, for the five score pund I’d laid by for’t lass,
They’re now off’ring twenty, an thinking it plenty;
Tho’ years ago, Jack, I was starving for’t brass.
“An Jack i’ the raw, ye very weel knaw,
The loss he cam too, when his house it was brunt:
His kistful of paper, went up in a vapour,
An of his sixscore pund he heard na mair on’t.
“No, no more their notes, shall they cram down our throats,
When we siller can get, man, to put i’ wour kists:
A f——t for their signing, an cautions sae whining,
Let them who won’t take them, wey, do it that lists.”
Notes
37 The caution was mostly signed by the grocers of the town; it having been devised at their trade meeting.