part 2
, act ii, scene 4.
[15] It is easy to see how _cheat_ became synonymous with “fraud,” when we remember that it was one of the most common words of the greatest class of cheats in the country.
[16] I am reminded by an eminent philologist that the origin of QUEER is seen in the _German_, QUER, crooked,—hence “odd.” I agree with this etymology, but still have reason to believe that the word was _first_ used in this country in a cant sense. Is it mentioned any where as a respectable term before 1500? If not, it had a vulgar or cant introduction into this country.
[17] BOOGET properly signifies a leathern wallet, and is probably derived from the _low Latin_, BULGA. A tinker’s budget is from the same source.
[18] Which, literally translated, means:
Go out, good girls, and look and see, Go out, good girls, and see; For all your clothes are carried away, And the good man has the money.
[19] Who wrote about the year 1610.
[20] _Gipseys of Spain_, vol. i., p. 18. Borrow further commits himself by remarking that “Head’s Vocabulary has always been accepted as the speech of the English Gipseys.” Nothing of the kind. Head professed to have lived with the Gipseys, but in reality filched his words from _Decker_ and _Brome_.
[21] The _modern_ meanings of a few of the old cant words are given in brackets.
[22] This is a curious volume, and is worth from one to two guineas. The Canting Dictionary was afterwards reprinted, word for word, with the title of _The Scoundrel’s Dictionary_, in 1751. It was originally published, without date, about the year 1710 by B. E., under the title of a _Dictionary of the Canting Crew_.
[23] _Bacchus and Venus_, 1737.
[24] Mayhew’s _London Labour and London Poor_, vol. iii., No. 43, Oct. 4th, 1851.
[25] _Mayhew_ (vol. i., p. 217), speaks of a low lodging-house, “in which there were at one time five university men, three surgeons, and several sorts of broken down clerks.” But old Harman’s saying, that “a wylde Roge is he that is _borne_ a roge,” will perhaps explain this seeming anomaly.
[26] _Mr. Rawlinson’s Report to the General Board of Health, Parish of Havant, Hampshire._
[27] Vol. v., p. 210.
[28] Vol. i., pages 218 and 247.
[29] See Dictionary.
[30] Sometimes, as appears from the following, the names of persons and houses are written instead. “In almost every one of the padding-kens, or low lodging-houses in the country, there is a list of walks pasted up over the kitchen mantel piece. Now at St. Albans, for instance, at the ——, and at other places, there is a paper stuck up in each of the kitchens. This paper is headed “WALKS OUT OF THIS TOWN,” and underneath it is set down the names of the villages in the neighbourhood at which a beggar may call when out on his walk, and they are so arranged as to allow the cadger to make a round of about six miles each day, and return the same night. In many of these papers there are sometimes twenty walks set down. No villages that are in any way “gammy” [bad] are ever mentioned in these papers, and the cadger, if he feels inclined to stop for a few days in the town, will be told by the lodging-house keeper, or the other cadgers that he may meet there, what gentlemen’s seats or private houses are of any account on the walk that he means to take. The names of the good houses are not set down in the paper for fear of the police.”—_Mayhew_, vol. i., p. 418.
[31] _Mayhew_, vol. i., p. 218.
[32] See Dictionary.
[33] _Mayhew_, vol. i., p. 218.
[34] _Mr. Rawlinson’s Report to the General Board of Health,—Parish of Havant, Hampshire._
[35] This term, with a singular literal downrightness, which would be remarkable in any other people than the French, is translated by them as the sect of _Trembleurs_.
[36] Swift alludes to this term in his _Art of Polite Conversation_, p. 14. 1738.
[37] See _Notes and Queries_, vol. i., p. 185. 1850.
[38] He afterwards kept a tavern at Wapping, mentioned by Pope in the _Dunciad_.
[39] _Sportsman’s Dictionary_, 1825, p. 15. I have searched the venerable magazine in vain for this Slang glossary.
[40] Introduction to _Bee’s Sportsman’s Dictionary_, 1825.
[41] The Gipseys use the word Slang as the Anglican synonyme for Romany, the continental (or rather Spanish) term for the Cingari or Gipsey tongue. _Crabb_, who wrote the _Gipsies’ Advocate_ in 1831, thus mentions the word:—“This language [Gipsey] _called by themselves_ _Slang_, or _Gibberish_, invented, as they think, by their forefathers for secret purposes, is not merely the language of one or a few of these wandering tribes, which are found in the European nations, but is adopted by the vast numbers who inhabit the earth.”
[42] The word SLANG assumed various meanings amongst costermongers, beggars, and vagabonds of all orders. It was, and is still, used to express cheating by false weights, a raree show, for retiring by a back door, for a watch-chain, and for their secret language.
[43] _North_, in his _Examen_, p. 574, says, “I may note that the rabble first changed their title, and were called the mob in the assemblies of this [Green Ribbon] club. It was their beast of burden, and called first _mobile vulgus_, but fell naturally into the contraction of one syllable, and ever since is become proper English.” In the same work, p. 231, the disgraceful origin of SHAM is given.
[44] It is rather singular that this popular journal should have contained a long article on _Slang_ a short time ago.
[45] The writer is quite correct in instancing this piece of fashionable twaddle. The mongrel formation is exceedingly amusing to a polite Parisian.
[46] Savez vous cela?
[47] From an early period politics and partyism have attracted unto themselves quaint Slang terms. Horace Walpole quotes a party nickname of February, 1742, as a Slang word of the day:—“The Tories declare against any further prosecution, if Tories there are, for now one hears of nothing but the BROAD-BOTTOM; it is the reigning Cant word, and means the taking all parties and people, indifferently, into the ministry.” Thus BROAD-BOTTOM in those days was Slang for _coalition_.
[48] This is more especially an amusement with medical students, and is comparatively unknown out of London.
[49] _Edinburgh Review_, October, 1853.
[50] A term derived from the _Record Newspaper_, the exponent of this singular section of the Low, or so called Evangelical Church.
[51] A preacher is said, in this phraseology, to be OWNED, when he makes many converts, and his converts are called his SEALS.
[52] “All our newspapers contain more or less colloquial words; in fact, there seems no other way of expressing certain ideas connected with passing events of every-day life, with the requisite force and piquancy. In the English newspapers the same thing is observable, and certain of them contain more of the class denominated Slang words than our own.”—_Bartlett’s Americanisms_, p. x., 1859.
[53] The terms _leader_ and _article_ can scarcely be called Slang, yet it would be desirable to know upon what authority they were first employed in their present peculiar sense.
[54] For some account of the origin of these nicknames see under MRS. HARRIS in the Dictionary.
[55] See Dictionary.
[56] _Mayhew_, vol. i., p. 24.
[57] My informant preferred EARTH to ERTH,—for the reason, he said, “that it looked more sensible!”
[58] The famous printers and publishers of sheet songs and last dying speeches thirty years ago.
[59] The writer, a street chaunter of ballads and last dying speeches, alludes in his letter to two celebrated criminals, Thos Drory, the murderer of Jael Denny, and Sarah Chesham, who poisoned her husband, accounts of whose Trials and “Horrid Deeds” he had been selling. I give a glossary of the cant words:
_Thickun_, a crownpiece.
_Dowry of Parny_, a lot of rain.
_Stumped_, bankrupt.
_Coopered_, spoilt.
_Bossman_, a farmer.
⁂ Drory was a farmer.
_Patter_, trial.
_Tops_, last dying speeches.
_Dies, ib._
_Croaks, ib._
_Burick_, a woman.
_Topped_, hung.
_Sturaban_, a prison.
_Quid_, a sovereign.
_James, ib._
_Clye_, a pocket.
_Carser_, a house or residence.
_Speel on the Drum_, to be off to the country.
_All Square_, all right, or quite well.
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“The author has spared no pains to make his little volume perfect, both by collecting original and unused material from costermongers, vagabonds, and tramps, and by consulting nearly all writers who have gone before. * * * The author divides SLANG into _historical_, _fashionable_, _parliamentary_, _military and dandy_, _university_, _religious_, _legal_, _literary_, _theatrical_, _civic_, _money_, _shopkeepers’ and workmen’s slang_,—the _slang apologies for oaths_, and the _slang of drunkenness_. The Freemasonry of tramps and beggars, and the hieroglyphics they use, is an interesting part of vagabond history that requires, if possible, further investigation. * * * His work is carefully and honestly performed, and we hope that the writer will read our remarks [five full columns] in a proper spirit, and, in the latest slang of the present hour, will “TAKE THEM ON HIS HEAD LIKE A BIRD.”—_Athenæum._
“Extremely interesting. This little volume is evidently the result of a great deal of labour, as all works must be that are, in the chief part, collected directly by the observation and care of the author: and this we believe is the case in the present instance. The author we suspect to be identical with the publisher, and if so, he has had great opportunity by his possession of a large amount of scarce tracts, ballads, and street publications, of informing himself of the language of the vagabond portion of our population.”—_Leader._
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=The History of English Popular Literature=, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF CHEAP OR CHAP-BOOKS, Penny and Sixpenny Histories, Old Romances, Fairy Tales, Books of Wonder, Garlands and Penny Collections of Ballads, Books of Recipes and Instruction, Jest Books, &c.; ALSO THE HISTORY OF THE RISE OF CHEAP SERIAL LITERATURE. 8vo.
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* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes
Variant spelling and hyphenation have been preserved as printed; simple typographical errors have been corrected.
The following changes were also made:
Page 24: _ROME BOUSE_ [rum booze], [TN: added comma]
Page 25: and what schoolboys term “freeing.”] [TN: added closing bracket]
Page 32: through the caprices of fashion. [TN: deleted extraneous quotation mark]
Page 35: “Hou_g_ do_g_ you_g_ do_g_?” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 67: a “GRACIOUS child,” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 91: singular enough now, but common forty years ago. [TN: deleted extraneous quotation mark]
Page 95: “oh, BETTER ’n a mile.” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 95: talk BIG,” _i.e._ [TN: was "ie."]
Page 96: BLOOD-RED [TN: added hyphen]
Page 98: “O du _blühende_ [TN: was "bülhende"]
Page 103: having been at first plastered [TN: was "filastered"]
Page 127: “tip us your DADDLES,” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 133: “what does he intend to imply?” [TN: added opening quotation mark]
Page 135: DUNAKER, a stealer of cows or calves. [TN: added period]
Page 138: “cut up FAT,” [TN: added opening quotation mark]
Page 142: FLUMMUXED, stopped, used up. [TN: added period]
Page 148: GO, a GO of gin, [TN: added comma]
Page 152: for his customers to visit him. [TN: was a comma]
Page 154: ST. BEE’S.—_University._ [TN: added period]
Page 156: feigning sickness or other means. [TN: added period]
Page 164: KIMBO, or A-KIMBO [TN: was "A KIMBO"]
Page 167: “landsman.”—_See_ LOAFER [TN: added opening quotation mark]
Page 174: “gay women.” [TN: added opening quotation mark]
Page 177: MUMMER, a performer at a travelling theatre. [TN: added period]
Page 178: “he picked up a bit of MUSLIN.” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 180: NESTS, varieties.—_Old_. [TN: added period]
Page 182: NYMPH OF THE PAVE (_French_, PAVÉ [TN: was "PAVÈ"]
Page 190: “PIPE one’s eye.” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 191: “he’s a rare PLUCKED-’UN,” _i.e._ [TN: added period]
Page 194: PRIG, a thief. [TN: added period]
Page 194: PUB, or PUBLIC, a public-house. [TN: added period]
Page 196: “M.B.” coats worn by Tractarian curates.— [TN: deleted extraneous quotation mark]
Page 199: “Lord Strut was not very _flush_ in READY.” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 199: RIBROAST, to beat till the ribs are sore. [TN: was a comma]
Page 200: “Rip! well, he was an old RIP, and no mistake.” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 202: “ROUGHING IT _in the Bush_” [TN: added opening quotation mark]
Page 204: or SALOP, a greasy [TN: deleted extraneous comma]
Page 204: NOVE SOLDI. [TN: added period]
Page 218: is supposed to be analogous [TN: was "analagous"]
Page 220: Tops are out; SMUGGING about.” [TN: single quote changed to double]
Page 227: “a rum START,” [TN: added opening quotation mark]
Page 227: “to get the START of a person,” to anticipate [TN: deleted extraneous comma]
Page 234: “to TAKE THE FIELD,” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 236: swim in twentie of their boats over the river UPON TICKET.” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 241: TWIST, appetite; “Will’s got a capital TWIST. [TN: was a comma]
Page 242: TWOPENNY, the head; “tuck in your TWOPENNY, [TN: was a period]
Page 242: hornpipes in fetters, _à la_ Jack Sheppard, [TN: was a period]
Page 244: WALK-THE-BARBER, [TN: added comma]
Page 244: WALL-FLOWER, [TN: added comma]
Page 244: this word from an ancestor of the Earl of Portsmouth, [TN: added comma]
Page 245: Generally used to express anything dishonestly taken. [TN: added period]
Page 247: “_Jack made a_ DOOGHENO HIT _this morning_,” [TN: added opening quotation mark]
Page 277: BAILEY’S (Nath.) Etymological English Dictionary, 2 vols, 8vo. [TN: added period]
Page 283: Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 8vo. 178— [TN: final number missing; em dash added]
Page 284: (prefixed to Holinshed’s Chronicle) [TN: added closing parenthesis]
Page 293: —SOUTH. [TN: added em dash]
Page 294: ‘Sam Slick’ [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 295: many wonderful stories are told.” [TN: added closing quotation mark]
Page 299: other sources, hitherto unexplored. [TN: added period]
Page 300: one of the Maids of Honour to the Princess Lamballe, &c. [TN: added period]
Page 300: The Marchioness Broglio [TN: was "Broglia"]