chorus.
Then, here's success my knowing kids, I'm filled with ev'ry charm, I feel so gay this blessed day, I've left Old Bates' Farm.
Now, every morning when you rise, You get a starving meal, And if you don't eat all they send You have to work the wheel. Then so merrily we go, To chapel to have prayers, And for a little pastime work The everlasting stairs.
Chorus.
The last time that I went to see Old Bates, he shook my hand, And said, 'I'm glad to see you, You're a chap I understand.' He said, 'You're here for nothing now?' I said 'Yes,' like the rest, It was only for knocking a bobby down, And jumping on his chest.
Chorus.
So now I've got my liberty, And once again I'm free, I mean to 'crack a crib' to-night. But pals don't 'crack on me.' So if I should touch lucre, For a time I will keep calm, If I don't see you here some night, I shall at Bates' Farm.
Chorus.
Bath. Go to Bath! phr. (familiar).—This
popular saying appears
to have two distinct readings,
both of which, however,
are traceable to the same source.
1. Go to Bath! i.e., an injunction to desist; to be gone; get out of my sight, or hearing, for you are mad or cracked—forcible expression of incredulity, sometimes intensified by 'and get your head shaved.' The saying is applied to those who either relate crack-brained stories, or propose undertakings that raise a doubt as to sanity. The allusion is to the fact that, in former days, persons who showed symptoms of insanity were sent to Bath to drink the medicinal waters; the process of shaving the head being previously resorted to.
1840. Barham, I. L. {Grey Dolphin). 'Go to Bath!' said the baron. A defiance so contemptuous roused the ire of the adverse commanders.
1885. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Oct. 16, p. 362. You tell a disagreeable neighbour to go to Bath in the sense in which a Roman would have said abi in malam rent.
2. Hence, to become a beggar. Bath, especially in the latter part of the last century, and at the beginning of the present one, enjoyed a reputation for its fashion and baths: it was also, naturally enough, for this very reason, the resort of countless numbers of beggars. To go to Bath signified, therefore, amongst vagrants, to proceed to what was in reality one of the first centres of beggardom; presumably to solicit alms. Hence also an additional clue to the process of transition into sense 1. What more natural than to bid an importunate applicant to betake himself to Bath to join his fellows? Fuller in his Worthies has a passage which throws some additional light upon the question.
1662. Fuller, History of the Worthies of England. Beggars of Bath.—Many in that place; some natives there, others repairing thither from all parts of the land; the poor for alms, the pained for ease. Whither should flock fowl in a hard frost, but to the barn-door? Here, all the two seasons, being the general confluence of gentry. Indeed laws are daily made to restrain beggars, and daily broken by the connivance of those who make them; it being impossible when the hungry belly barks, and bowels sound, to keep the tongue silent. And although oil of whip be the proper plaister for the cramp of laziness, yet some pity is due to impotent persons. In a word, seeing there is the Lazar's bath in this city, I doubt not but many a good Lazarus, the true object of charity, may beg therein.
Long previous to 1662, how-
