SNOOKER’S LITTLE PLAN

Weekly Times (Melbourne), Saturday 20 September 1902

Bill Snooker was a laborer who led a healthy life.
And shared a three-roomed cottage with his children and his wife.
His talk was somewhat slangy, though his principles were straight;
And one of them was never to go crooked on a mate.
His "kids" were always warmly clad, his "missus" was content.
He called his landlord "blokey," though he always paid his rent.
Though ho had enough to eat,
It was hard to make ends me(a)t
(With mutton at the present price to do so were a feat);
But the hardest nut to crack
Was the future, which seemed black,
To peer in any distance was to hastily draw back.
One day there came to Snooker's house a fellow with a scheme
Providing for the future in a way they didn't dream. 
He figured for the "missus" on the door a wondrous sum
That seemed to her more simple than the well-known rule of thumb;
She pondered on it deeply, and she thought she saw the light,
And told the scheme to Snooker when he started tea that night—
As she pointed with her knife,
Said Bill Snooker's little wife,
"'Ere, Bill, I think as 'ow yer oughter just Insure yer life;
So as if we're took away,
An' there comes a rainy day,
There will be a lump o' money what the company will pay."
Bill peered into the future once again, then shut his eyes;
Says he, "I can't insure myself unless I make a rise;"
But on a piece of paper round his lunch he read ono day
Au item he culled carefully, and put the scrap away.
His conduct after this, to say the least, was very queer.
And "missus" grew suspicious, though she knew not what to fear.
For he bought a strange affair,
And he fixed it safely where
He pulled and tugged and struggled with his top half stripped and bare;
In the morning ere 'twas light.
Evening time and Iate at night,
Bill worked at things like bell ropes, and was shaping as to fight.
He Sandowed up and Sandowed down, and after every bout
The "missus" and the "kiddies" took It turn and turn about
To buffet him and pummel him, to make him hard, he said,
And neighbors thought that Snooker had gone fairly off his head.
At last unto the "missus" he the subject introduced.
And from a matchbox he the paper cutting then produced.
And the cutting was to say
That when Sandow passed away,
Six thousand pounds a syndicate had contracted to pay
For the skeleton of "San,"
Of the noted muscle man,
And Snooker thought that this was far the best insurance plan