Songfacts®:

• "Better be an old man's darling, than a young man's slave" is a well known proverb; the wording varies, sometimes the unfortunate is rendered as a maid rather than a slave. The meaning is self-evident, although it has less relevance in a world where it is assumed that most women will work outside the home and many will have their own careers.
  
  It was only natural the phrase be purloined at some point for a song, and just as natural that it should be sung in the music hall, and by Vesta Victoria.
• The sheet music was published by Hopwood & Crew of London in 1903; Fred Murray and George Everard appear to have both contributed to the words and the music; they were both composers. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2