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Sure they put me on the census for to go and take the town,
And every street and every lane I have to mark them down;
So I called on Ellen Butler, and I saw old Nancy Brien,
I know she's over ninety but she said she's twenty-nine.
I saw long Bill, George Gill and Tommy Trout from Nagle's Hill,
Jim Dinn, Dan Frim and Mary Francis Brown;
Kate Page, Joe Sage and Fanny Jones was in a rage,
The crowd I had to take them when I went to do the town.
So I called on Betsy Shoestrings, that's the woman lives next door,
I asked her about the family and she told me twenty-four;
There is Fred and Ted and two that's dead, Maria, Kate and May,
And Andy on the crusher earning thirty cents a day.
It takes a man of iron nerve to do this jog at all,
For dodging cups and tommyhawks at every house you call;
I asked if all were of sound mind, when in a rage she flew,
Get out, said she, you damn old fool, there's none as bad as you.
Published in Burke's Ballads, p.22, c.1960, compiled by John White and archived at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Libraries, Centre For Newfoundland Studies - Digitized Books collection.
