Communursery Rhymes

Federal investigation officers visited Sydney Trades Hall yesterday to inquire into the publication of a Communist journal for children, called “The Young Communist.” This suggests some possible adaptations.

Mary had a little lamb.
    She said, “It’s all I’ve got;
While Ernestine and Ermintrude
    And Edith have a lot.”
So she went and joined Communists
    Who numbered very many.
They whacked the lamb among themselves;
    And now she hasn’t any.

*

There was a man in our town,
    And he was wondrous wise;
He jumped into a hawthorn hedge
    And scratched out both his eyes.
And when he found his eyes were out,
    Then, what do you suppose?
He went and asked the Communists
    To lead him by the nose.

*

Old Mother Hubbard, she went to the cupboard
    To get her poor dog a bone.
Said the dog, “I’m a Red. Other dogs must be fed;
    And I won’t have a bone on my own.”

*

Taffy was a Bolshie, Taffy was a Red;
Taffy came to my house and stole my feather bed.
To all his Bolshie comrades he gave a single feather,
Now everybody’s satisfied and shivering together.

*

Rockaby, baby, on the tree-top.
Here comes a Communist. Now for a flop.
For you can’t be on top without coming a thud.
And nice little Communists play in the mud.

*

Little Jack Horner sat in a corner
    Eating his Christmas pie.
He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum,
    And said, “This is not mine. But how
can you divide one plum amongst the proletariat?”