Sing Song - nursery poem definitions
My wife was reading me this poem for our kids' homeschool
A city plum is not a plum; A dumb-bell is no bell, though dumb; A statesman's rat is not a rat; A sailor's cat is not a cat; A soldier's frog is not a frog;
Sing Song - Christina Georgina Rossetti
I know what a dumb bell and a captain's log are (weights and a diary), but what's a city plum; what is a statesman's rat; what is a sailor's cat; and what is a soldier's frog?
Solution 1:
This was homework? Apparently this doggerel ditty was published 1872 by Christina Rossetti...
city plum - rare slang for someone who possesses £100000.
statesman's rat - politician who abandons his party.
sailor's cat - braided naval whip, 'cat-o-nine-tails' or possibly a type of sailor's knot - a 'cat's paw' or 'catshank'.
soldier's frog - decorative fastening made of ornamental braiding which loops around a button.
I never heard of plum for a rich person, but all the others are still current. Not that I knew about frog fasteners until now, and the cat/whip no longer exists in civilised society. Newspapers still sometimes relish reporting political rats, but after all this time they're hardly news any more.
Solution 2:
I don't wish to take anything away from FumbleFingers' clear and concise answer, but I think frog has more meanings than mentioned. It could certainly be an ornamental braid, and gold-frogged uniforms is quite a common phrase. But a frog is also the term for the fastening on a belt that takes a bayonet or whatever (sometimes sword-frog), which seems more likely in contaxt.