The Boss of the `Admiral Lynch'



Did you ever hear tell of Chili? I was readin' the other day
Of President Balmaceda and of how he was sent away.
It seems that he didn't suit 'em -- they thought that they'd like a change,
So they started an insurrection and chased him across the range.
They seemed to be restless people -- and, judging by what you hear,
They raise up these revolutions 'bout two or three times a year;
And the man that goes out of office, he goes for the boundary QUICK,
For there isn't no vote by ballot -- it's bullets that does the trick.
And it ain't like a real battle, where the prisoners' lives are spared,
And they fight till there's one side beaten
and then there's a truce declared,

And the man that has got the licking goes down like a blooming lord
To hand in his resignation and give up his blooming sword,
And the other man bows and takes it, and everything's all polite --
This wasn't that kind of a picnic, this wasn't that sort of a fight.
For the pris'ners they took -- they shot 'em;
no odds were they small or great,
If they'd collared old Balmaceda, they reckoned to shoot him straight.
A lot of bloodthirsty devils they were -- but there ain't a doubt
They must have been real plucked 'uns -- the way that they fought it out,
And the king of 'em all, I reckon, the man that could stand a pinch,
Was the boss of a one-horse gunboat. They called her the `Admiral Lynch'.