Tiddle-a-wink the barber

From anonymous broadside (Crampton Broadside Collection, British Library)

Now Mr. Tomkins had a son who kept Barber's shop
And being queer could not go there, so a note to his son did drop,
Said he young knave I want a shave, I also really think
There is not one shaves like my son, whose name Is Tiddle-a-Wink.

Tiddle-a-Wink, Tiddle-a-Wink, Tiddle-a-Wink, the barber,
Tiddle-a-Wink, Tiddle-a-Wink went to shave his father,
But he made a slip and cut his lip, which made the father roar,
The father knocked poor Tiddle-a-Wink bang upon the floor.
 
The blood then flowed from Tomkins' and very soon he found,
Where he used to put an ounce of meat there was room to put a pound;
The doctor he was quickly fetched, to sew it up did try.
He looked so queer they were all in fear, when the doctor said he must die.

Said he, I think this Tiddle-a-Wink has caused his father's death;
Then Tiddle-a-Wink with fear did blink, could scarcely catch his breath:
The father died, the son he tried some poison for to take,
But this they stopped and on him dropped, for making this sad mistake.

Next morn before the magistrate poor Tiddle-a-Wink they took.
There his history to relate, and like a leaf he shook;
His solicitor he soon set him free, and when the people, they
Asked how the old man met his death; others they would say:
Spoken. - Oh, haven't you heard? don't you know? why-

Written, composed and performed by John Read in the late 1870s, also popular in the USA at that time, where Tony Pastor sang it as part of a theatrical burlesque The Canal Boat Pinafore.