I have been playing this tune a bit and when researching some variants I found this website with info and this funny bit:
"The song was a roaring success in the Music Halls, made popular by James Hurst Stead, who, after the final verse, went straight into an early version of the punk pogo dance, where he is said to have jumped up and down 400 times during the song, and sometimes performed it in four different venues in the course of one night!"
https://folkmusicnotes.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/the-perfect-cure/