Untold lives blog

 
Last Movember we brought you the cautionary Lay of the Red Moustache. This year we have found more tragic verse in the British Library collections to alert our readers to the dangers of becoming too fond of the splendid moustaches now sprouting forth.  A warning - parts of Mr Newton’s poem are not for the squeamish.

 The Moustache Murder
Or, the Cruelly Commercial and Lugubriously Lyrical Legend of Noddlekins and Jemima

 Now all ye good people, pray listen to me well,
‘Tis of a young bank-clerk I’m going for to tell;
His name it was Noddlekins, rather reckless and rash,
Who wore upon his upper lip a very fine moustache.

Now as Noddlekins was a-standing in the counting-house one day,
The Manager came up to him, and thus he did say,
“Go, get a sharp razor, and remove all that hair,
For mustachers the Directors are determined you shan’t wear.”

“My dear sir, my dear sir,” young Noddlekins replied,
“I’ll oblige you in any other mortal thing beside;
But before I will lose one hair out of my moustache,
I will see the whole place go to everlasting smash.”

“Now go, boldest Noddlekins,” the Manager he gasped,
“If you will not consent that your face shall be rasped,
You must leave – for I’ve promised, and my promise I will keep,
To make a separation of the goats from the sheep.”

Now Noddlekins had a sweetheart, Jemima by name,
She suggested the moustache, and she doted on the same;
And her feelings experienced a terrible crash,
When she heard that her Noddlekins thought of shaving his moustache.

She most viciously jibbed like a foal at a fence,
And she wouldn’t hear a word of poor Noddlekins’ defence;
But she said, “if you mean to act like a little boy at school,
Recollect, Mr Noddlekins, I won’t wed a fool.”

As Jemima was walking near her father’s abode,
She spied her dear Noddlekins a-lying on the road,
Half-shaved, with his throat cut, and a billet-doux to prove,
That his suicide was occasioned by moustachios and love.

On his dear half-denuded mouth she deposited one kiss,
And she said, “It’s my tantrums have brought you to this.”
The she slit her carotid with more spirit than sense,
And their lives are both in the pluperfect sense.

Now all ye young bank-clerks who wish to cut a dash,
Never quarrel with the governor on account of a moustache;
And ye maidens be careful lest you come to act in time a
Sad tragedy like the razor-slaughtered Noddlekins and Jemima.

At twelve the next night, by the Manager’s bed-side,
The ghost of Jemima with weasand slit wide,
Arm-in-arm with her Noddlekins, whose throat was cut too,
Said, “Serene might our gullets be if it hadn’t been for you!”

Now the Manager no longer in the bank dare remain,
So he slipped on his cloak and popped off to the train;
But standing on the platform he felt rather queer,
And he died with a gurgle like a bottle of beer.

Now this is the moral or epilogue to the play,
(The other was an interlude put in by the way,)
You may learn from this song, which is true, I declare,
That this here only happened on account of that hair.

If you would like to read more of John Newton's verse, here is the source -

Title page of John Newton The Shavers Shaved or The Fatal Moustache (1858) 11649 e.36 

Margaret Makepeace
India Office Records

The picture of the man with a moustache is taken from Cook's Handbook for London (1894) 10347.h.23  - available on the British Library flickr photostream.