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—a 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 rem.
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, however, stringent vagrant laws were in force.
1588. William Lambard, The Office of the Justices of the Peace, p.
334. Such two Justices may ... License diseased persons (living of
almes) to trauell to Bathe, or to Buckstone [Buxton], for remedie
of their griefe.
Bathing Machines, subs. (nautical).—A name given to the old 10 ton
brigs.—Russell’s Sailor’s Language.
Bat-Mugger, subs. (Winchester College).—A wooden instrument used for
rubbing oil into cricket bats.
Bats, subs. (thieves’).—A pair of bad or old boots. Elworthy in West
Somerset Words gives this as a heavy laced boot with hobnails.
Bats Down? (Winchester and general).—‘How many bats down?’ i.e., how
many wickets have fallen?
Battels, subs. (University).—The weekly bills of students at Oxford.
The derivation of the term has been the subject of much discussion, and
is very uncertain. Murray says much depends on the original sense at
Oxford: if this was ‘food, provisions,’ it is natural to connect it
with ‘battle,’ to feed, or receive nourishment.—See quotation.
1886–7. Dickens, Dictionary of Oxford and Cambridge, p. 16. Battels
is properly a designation of the food obtained from the College
Buttery. An account of this, and of the account due to the Kitchen,
is sent in to every undergraduate weekly, hence these bills also
are known as battels, and the name, further, is extended to the
total amount of the term’s expenses furnished by the College. In
some Colleges it is made essential to the keeping of an
undergraduates’ term that he should battel, i.e., obtain food in
College on a certain number of days each week.
To quote Dr. Murray again, however, it appears that the word has
apparently undergone progressive extensions of application, owing
partly to changes in the internal economy of the colleges. Some Oxford
men of a previous generation state that it was understood by them to
apply to the buttery accounts alone, or even to the provisions ordered
from the buttery, as distinct from the ‘commons’ supplied from the
kitchen: but this latter use is disavowed by others ... but whether the
battels were originally the provisions themselves, or the sums due on
account of them, must at present be left undecided.
1853. Cuthbert Bede, Verdant Green, pt. II., ch. vii. The
Michaelmas term was drawing to its close. Buttery and kitchen books
were adding up their sums total; bursars were preparing for
battels.
(Eton.)—See quotation.
1798. H. Tooke, Purley, 390. Battel, a term used at Eton for the
small portion of food which, in addition to the College allowance,
the collegers receive from their dames.
Batter, subs. (common).—Wear and tear; e.g., ‘the batter is more than
any human being can stand for long.’ [From one of the ordinary meanings
of to batter, to wear or impair by beating or long service, as a
battered jade.]