Pop Goes the Weazle! No. 3

NY: Andrews' Printer, (38 Chatham St. ). Very Good; Some light creasing and toning. Faint penciled name (A. M. . Catton? ) on top border.. N.D.. Ephemera. Circa 1858 handbill. Printed song lyrics with decorative border. Printed on 9.5 x 6 inch sheet on verso only. New lyrics to the old nursery rhyme with references to Queen Victoria, Battle of Sebastopol, Napoleon, and the prohibition law passed in the State of Maine. Last verse reads: “Mayor Wood has put the rumsellers through, The Maine Law’s a sad evil, We cannot get our toddy now; Pop goes the weazle. ”A nearly identical version of this ditty, with the “z” in weazel replaced with an “s”, can be found in Beadle’s Dime Song Book, A Collection of New and Popular Comic and Sentimental Songs (1857). According to Grosvenor Library Bulletin: An Indexed Catalogue of Books in the Department of Local History and Genealogy (Mar. 1900) : Volume 1, Mayor Wood refers to New York City Mayor Fernando Wood, who was a Tammany Hall politician first elected as Mayor in 1855. His bloody feud with the Republican controlled State legislature created a duplicate New York City police force to try and oust him in 1857 and the chaos of the Gangs of New York era. The 1851 Maine Law, the first statewide prohibition law, and the reference to Mayor Wood putting the rumsellers through alludes to his refusal as mayor to enforce the 1857 New York State prohibition law. .