Now you with ancles short and thick, Of every rank and station, Oh, won’t you cut it fine and slick, By this new alteration. And landladies that creep about, Well known as twenty stoners, Come shove your bustles up the spout, And join the dashing bloomers. The bloomers dress, the people say, Is getting all the go now, The pretty factory lasses they, Will cut a gallant show now, In petticoats above their knes, And breeches too you’ll fit them. Nice jackets made of velveteen, All button’d up behind them. Now married men take my advice, Step out and spend your riches, And buy your wife all in a trice, Short petticoats and breeches, For in the fashion she will hop, Whene’er she’s out of humour, I wonder if her tongue will stop, When she becomes a bloomer. Last night my wife she said to me, Tom, when we’ve got the notes in, I’ll have a pair of gaiters, and Breeches made of goat’s skin. A pair of boots and silver spurs, For I have got such bad legs, I cannot hide I’ll have to ride, The donkey now a strad-legs. The men must go out selling fish, And deal in shrimps and mussels, Dress’d up in ladies’ petticoats, Fine flounces and big bustles, You’ll have no call to work at all, But walk out in your broaches, The ladies are determined, for, To drive the cabs and coaches. The tailors now must all be sharp In making noble stitches, And be sure and clap their burning goose Upon the ladies’ breeches; Their pretty little fingers will Be just as sore as mutton, Until that they have found the way Their trousers to unbutton. You factory lasses, one and all, Your dresses all reform now, Buy a jacket and a trousers for To keep you snug and warm now; Short petticoats and garters too, No matter how the time goes, A billycock and feather for To see which way the wind blows. M. O’LOUGHNAN. [Illustration] MANCHESTER’S AN ALTERED TOWN. Once on a time this good old town was nothing but a village, Of husbandry, and farmers too, whose time was spent in tillage; But things are altered very much, such building now allotted is, It rivals far and soon will leave behind the great Metropolis. O dear O, Manchester’s an altered town, O dear O. Once on a time were you inclin’d, your weary limbs to lave, sir, In summer’s scorching heat in the Irwell’s cooling wave, sir; You had only got to go to the Old Church for the shore, sir, But since those days the fish have died, and now they are no more, sir.