Town Pants, The – Hells Kitchen

Well Mary was a lass

From the lower class

She was an Irish emigree

When she arrived in New York

In a kitchen she found work

Cooking meals in the Bowery

In that kitchen Mary baked

and never took a break

and the people wolfed it down

But bellies growled

more than they should

From eating all they could

‘Til they were buried in the ground

Oh Mary, Typhoid Mary

Your kitchen wasn’t clean

The dead are dead I reckon

because they asked for seconds

Your kitchen wasn’t clean

The city was scared

And began to despair

Where could this plague

come from so crude?

And the cops began to wonder

Why all those gone asunder

had eaten Mary Mallon’s food

So like a crook she was sought

and Mary was caught

The charge she did not understand

Her stools were tested

And Mary was arrested

If only she’d washed her hands

Oh Mary, Typhoid Mary

Your kitchen wasn’t clean

The dead are dead I reckon

because they asked for seconds

Your kitchen wasn’t clean

In the hands of the state

she died in thirty eight

The advice her survivors left –

If a meal makes you faint

Then make a complaint

And ask to see the chef