A SONG FOR DREDGERS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 29 May 1901, Page 4

A SONG FOR DREDGERS.

Arrah now bboys! shure ’tis dredgin’ Is all the gal on Westland’s shore The bucketfuls of gould galore. We’ll dig up by our dredges. The tailin’s, piled on mountains high, Will raise the rivers by-and-bye, And make the growlin’ cockles cry, Their farms are ruined by dredges.

We may to desperation drive A few poor miserable cockatoos. What matter at all if they go through ? We will not stop our dredgin’. ’Twill do no good to growl and stand Making commothions about their land Shure ’tis the Miner’s rule; Och! ’tis grand, Well lam thimso whin dredgin’.

Tho’ mid hard times they manful fought. No fear of cockies getting ought. Who cares a d n lion' hard they wrought ? Not one of us I’m thinkin’. We’ll silt thira up and dhrowu thim out; My faith, then, wont they rave and shout, We’ve got to clear the beggars out Whin we got stharted dredgin’.

Be jahers ! Now we’ll take their soil, What fools they were to slave and toil, And now make such a mighty coil* About their ruinathion. Shure Dick will sarve the beggars right, The justice want, by gobs ! sit tight. He’ll show thim £thin, “that might is right,” Whin they want compinsation.

Commissioners to them he’ll send, The money he’ll right royal spend, In makin’ billets for his friends, Not waste, on cookies growlin’. He’ll make belavc, he is their friend, Och shure 1 ’twill all balarncy end, His other eye is winkin’.

He’ll fix the cookies in a trice, We’ve got them safely in a vice He’ll screw it tight, oh ! they’ll be wise, To quit, when we go dredgin’. They won’t another lesson made. This land so free, is’nt for their breed, They’d better emigrathe, indade, They’d best their swags be humpin’.

The miner’s friend is Bichard still, Oft times he put them “ in his till,” When living ’mid Kumara’s hills, Och ! he’s the bhoy is Bichard. He used so well his gift of gab, To Parliamint he wint, bedad !

The Premiership he soon did grab, A shmart man is our Bichard.

We’ve got the votes, don’t you forget, Dick the Honourable won’t you bet, He knows which side his butther’s yet, Oh! he’ll assist our dredgin’. We’ll all make piles, and by him sthand, When he gets knighted. Who so grand ? He’ll kindly take the “Dook” in hand, I faith! he’ll set him dredgin’.

Deedgee,