Sanitation at Sea

I have sailed o’er the ocean to spots far away,
I’ve also done “Margate and back” in the day;
I have spent the long nights upon deck in a storm,
And stood by the funnel to keep myself warm;
And when I’ve been poorly as poorly can be,
I have sighed for some slight “sanitation at sea.”

I have been in the cabin where sufferers lay
In an atmosphere fitted a nigger to slay,
I have slept in a bunk where the air was so foul
That I woke in the morn with an agonized howl,
And I’ve staggered upstairs crying, “Oh, dearie me!
Why will they ignore ‘sanitation at sea’?”

By the smell of the engine, the dirt on the deck,
By the stairs you descend at the risk of your neck,
By the cabin whose odour is stuffy and stale,
By the dirty old tub which is known as “the Mail,”
By the horrors from which scarce a vessel is free,
We’d welcome the least “sanitation at sea.”