Broadside ballad entitled 'Be Careful in Choosing a Wife'

Transcription

BE

CAREFUL

IN CHOOSING

A WIFE.

Now all young men that are going to wed,
Don't be caught like a bird with a small piece of bread
For when you are caught, remember it's for life,
I'd have you be careful in choosing a wife.

For women are deceitful and very unkind,
It would puzzle a lawyer to know their right mind ;
And when that you have done the best that you can,
The silliest of women will out wit a man.

But when you are wed, and a squaller is born,
A man may then work his fingers to the bone;
There's the midwife, the nurse, aud a gossiping crew,
And then a poor man can't pull himself through.

In the morning he finds that he's cold at the hip,
That the sheets are quite wet, and his shirt is all-
If this is the comfort of a married life,
I wish in my heart I ne'er had a wife.

In the morning I go to my breakfast at nine,
Vo fire in the grate nor yet any sign ;
My wife ahe lies snoring like a pig in a stye,
But there's never a bit of breakfast ready for I.

If I ask her to rise, oh, she flies in a pet,
And bawls out begone, for it's time enough yet;
Get thy breakfast thyself and be off to thy work,
And don't stay here to idle and lurk.

When dinner time comes to my home I repair,
'Tis a thousand to one if my wife I find there,
She is gadging about with a child on her knee,
And the devil a sign of a dinner for me.

At night when I come home sadly tired from my work
When I open the door she lets fly like a turk;
Take that young squalling wean and get it to sleep,
For all the day long no peace can I keep.

But if I should offer the job to refuse,
With the tongs or the poker she will me abuse ;
And if this is the comfort of a married life,
I wish that the devil had got such a wife.

Sold by JAMES LINDSAY, Printer and Wholesale
Stationer, & c., 9 King Street, (off Trongate)
Glasgow. Upwards of 5,000 sorts always on
and; also a great variety of Picture-Books Song
Books, Histories, &c Shops and Hawkers sup-
plied on Liberal Terms.

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