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Three bottles a week when you feel like a root,
But you must have a permit and you must act cute;
When you want a bottle you must bring your book,
So the clerk at Controller's for your name he will look.
O, dear Mr. Mifflin, oh, dear Mr. Miff,
The new regulations are terrible stiff;
You must bring your primer three doors from The News,
Before they'll allow you a bottle of booze.
You must go to the Control in sunshine or rain,
And wait for three weeks for to take down your name;
You must tell your name and your place of abode,
And then have to heel it for Oxon Pond Road.
O, dear Mr. Mifflin, oh, goodness by law,
If your wife's taken bad with a cramp in her craw;
You must leave her to die if she's feeling unwell,
And not even a cork for to give her a smell.
And then the poor devil a drink trying to bum,
When the boys have no money to splice for the rum;
He will then shape his course for the nearest beer shop,
And spend all the money there, lowering down hop.
Oh, Mr. Controller, all nature it shocks,
When a man's overdrawn and he's now on the rocks;
The hank of black puddings he now has to stop,
That always went great when you're taking a drop.
Published in Burke's Ballads, p.47, c.1960, compiled by John White and archived at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Libraries, Centre For Newfoundland Studies - Digitized Books collection.
See more songs by Johnny Burke.
From Wikipedia:
Black Pudding or blood pudding - type of sausage made by cooking blood or dried blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. It is also called blood sausage (first attested in 1868, perhaps influenced by German Blutwurst).
Oxen Pond Road is located west of metropolitan St. John's from Freshwater Road to Prince Phillip Drive; it picks up again from Baird Place to Larkhall Street; then again from Exmouth Street to Mt. Scio Road, an entrance to Pippy Park and the Memorial University of Newfoundland Botanical Garden which includes the freshwater Oxen Pond on its 110 acre nature reserve.
