Put me upon an island where the girls are few: The Suffragette song c1910

LETTERS, Will; WILKIE, James. Put Me Upon an Island Where the Girls Are Few. The Suffragette Song. 
 
London, National Music Publishing Co., 132 Charing Cross Road, [c. 1910].
 
Folio sheet music, 8 pp. (two bifolia, folded), 260 × 360 mm. Printed in black with illustrated title-page; musical notation with lyrics throughout. Light folds and handling wear, otherwise a very good copy.
 
A decidedly anti-suffrage music-hall song issued at the height of the women’s suffrage campaign, presenting a comic but overtly hostile view of the suffragettes. The chorus runs: “Put me upon an island where the girls are few, put me amongst the most ferocious lions in the zoo, put me on a treadmill and i'll never fret … but for pity’s sake don’t put me near a suff-ra-gette,” and the verses mock married men allegedly reduced to misery and silence by their suffragette wives "Now for instance let us take the fellow newly wed, fellow newly wed, poor fellow soon wishes he was dead".
 
The lyricist, Will Letters, was a professional writer of topical and novelty songs, while “The Wilkie Bard” was the stage name of the music-hall performer James Wilkie, who capitalised on topics of the day, and writers such as Letters, for him then to perform on stage to.
 
A particularly biting example of anti-suffrage culture, illustrating how the campaign for women’s political rights was contested in music halls and light entertainment as well as in the press and parliament.