Part 1

A VOCABULARY OF CRIMINAL SLANG

Copyrighted, 1914 By LOUIS E. JACKSON

A VOCABULARY OF CRIMINAL SLANG

WITH

SOME EXAMPLES OF COMMON USAGES

BY

LOUIS E. JACKSON

Assisted by

C. R. HELLYER, _City Detective Department_

PORTLAND, OREGON

Price, $1.50

DEDICATED TO

T. M. Word

Sheriff of Multnomah County, Oregon

A Fearless and Intelligent Administrator of a Public Trust.

_INTRODUCTION_

It is not with a view to sensationalism that this little work is undertaken, but with a sense of helpfulness, of social obligation. It is submitted for the perusal and study of all those public officers and professional servants whose responsibilities are such as to bring them into casual or constant contact with the confirmed criminal classes.

It may fall into the hands of some unfit subjects and thereby contribute to the propagation of its contents in undesirable quarters. On the other hand we may consider that publicity is the speediest agent for the destruction of cankerous moral growths. Perhaps the possession of such knowledge as is here presented argues a sordidness; but Gordian knots can be untied only by use of the sword; to have cherries in the winter a can opener must be used, or to stand eggs on end you must smash them.

By the very nature of crime its efficient vehicle of transmission is ephemeral, very ephemeral. The vernacular of twenty-five years ago is almost oblivion today. So with the future; provided, of course, that the idiom of the underworld surrender its meaning to the social layers superimposed upon it. This process can be made effective by investigation and publicity. When bench and bar, the press, custodians of law and order and private agencies devoted to the detection, repression and correction of crime are made familiar with the wiles and mode of communication of criminals, the latter are rendered less powerful insofar as the evolved system of guile and wrong-doing are concerned.

It is noticeably true that our average law officer or advocate is necessarily a specialist in one or perhaps a few, at most, of the many recognized branches of professional crime. The limitation is occasioned in part by prescribed capacity and in part by inexperience or unfamiliarity with criminals of all types and their methods. Efficiency in general correctional labor may undoubtedly be promoted by a fuller understanding of the linguistic acquirements of subjects to be dealt with in every day practice. It is hoped that the publication of this vocabulary of criminal terms will render material advantages to the conscientious workers in this large field.

We are conscious of many errors of omission in the work and we request the co-operation of all who are interested in its utility. Only the essential and most pertinent or purely criminal vernacular usages have been selected from the mystical parlance of professional violators and their accomplices, for the reason that popular slang is so extensively comprehended as to make its publication of doubtful value as a new contribution to our literature.

An analysis of the four hundred and thirty terms included in the vocabulary reveals the interesting fact that criminal idiom is largely an ingenious combination of epithet suggested by similitude and a perverted construction of essential and accidental attributes of things and powers to imply or express the things and actions themselves. An occult jargon on its face, yet systematic enough when the key is acquired.

Some of the terms seem to have been derived by simple partition of legitimate English words, occasionally with the addition of euphonious prefix or suffix. As a prime example of the transposition of an attribute for the thing itself, consider what is perhaps the most popular slang term in use today in the unregenerate world--“dope,” at present signifying “news,” “intelligence,” or “meaning.” Originally this word was derived from opium by partition, with the disguising consonant “d” prefixed to the accented syllable. Amongst narcotic habitues the most salient attribute of opium is stimulation of loquacity, or imaginativeness or of exaggeration. In process of time any of these powers came to characterize narcotic intoxication; thence information on any subject was designated “dope.” The “dope sheet,” a “line of dope,” are natural offshoots of this tendency to transpose attribute into a new substantive. To philologists this noteworthy observation should infallibly point out the utter lack of scientific relation between an artificial sound--or visual--symbol and the thing, quality or quantity symbolized thereby.

Without previous instruction a person gifted with intuition might divine the signification of the majority of these terms in vogue by weighing the context of the sentences in which they are included. Yet a practical working knowledge of them should be made more available by frequent reference to a complete list. The sole excuse for criminal slang is the protection afforded by secrecy, which once destroyed the slang is forced to die of neglect, though it will naturally be superseded by evolutionary linguistic devices.

To fraternize with a secret order we must equip ourselves with a knowledge of the ceremonies and aims as well as the selective means of the secret fraternists. To combat criminals successfully it is necessary to understand their complete vehicles of intercommunication, else the investigator is unqualified to fraternize with them so as to gain a fuller insight both into their actions and the living motives concealed behind them. Unquestionably, every term in the vocabulary is known to some officer of the law; unquestionably, too, every term contained therein is understood by but very few individuals even amongst criminals themselves. Therefore it would seem a distinct gain to become familiar with them all.

Aided by a panoramic view of recorded crime in the last generation we may roughly divide criminal offenses into the four great departments of crimes against self, or reflexive crimes against personal character, which have their fountain head in intemperance and gluttony; crimes against sex, which have their basis in the emotions flowing out of lust; crimes against property, fed by the sins of avarice or greed; and the crimes of violence, growing out of anger. Of these four, reflexive crimes and crimes of violence are distinctively psychological and must be left to the individual for corrective solution. Crimes against property and crimes of sexual depravity constitute the bulk of costly and troublesome cases which choke the machinery of our legal tribunals and necessitate a regrettable public tax for maintenance of penal and detentional institutions. The chronic defectives who most seriously menace the social body are comprised of prostitutes; gamblers; nondescriptively larcenous tramps; yeggs; burglars; sneak thieves; confidence men; dishonest solicitors; promoters and agents; forgers; merchandise thieves; pickpockets; highway robbers; and their accessories, the unscrupulous pawnbroker, the unrestrained liquor dealer, and the drug dispenser. It goes without saying that the volume and value of business transacted by these latter three attest the stupendous proportions of the direct losses sustained by the commonwealth through the misdirected energies of the principal professional criminal classes.

From an economical standpoint the traffic of professional crime is stupendous. We are mulcted some four hundred millions of dollars annually by reason of the criminal element in the nation. A conservative estimate of the number of active professional criminals of high and low degree is probably 100,000. We have one uniformed police officer for every thousand of population, and about one auxiliary officer per thousand of population in addition. Here are 200,000 more persons in the non-productive class. Criminal lawyers and criminal court functionaries contribute another ratio of one to the thousand of population, making a conservative total of 400,000 engaged in preying upon and relieving the producers from distress occasioned by crimes against person and property.

Admitting that the average income of the 300,000 police officers, lawyers and court officials is about $1,200 per year, we have a $360,000,000 overhead cost charged against production. The loss sustained through the peculations of criminals and the cost of detaining them is not less than another $88,000,000 per year, on the estimated basis of $882 per year per criminal. A grand total of $448,000,000!

Suppose the average age of the professional criminal to be 30 years. As the average financial investment in an individual of that age in the U. S. is $12,600, his productive capacity should be at least six per cent on the investment (if possessed of industrial training), plus the cost of human upkeep; which means a total of about $1,170 per year earning capacity for the average individual. Or at six per cent interest alone on the personality investment he represents an annual potential addition of $757 to the national wealth. Add to this the cost to the state of detaining him, say an average of $125 per year, and we have $882 per year per prisoner. The actual loss in interest on criminal personality investments is about $75,000,000 per 100,000 prisoners per year; a waste that is perpetuated by the present judicial and penal system.

Now, the average thief cannot steal $1,170 per year, nor even $757, when account is taken of time lost in prison. The crux of the situation seems to lie in the criminal’s lack of training in the useful arts, together with moral delinquency. So far we have experimented chiefly with two extremes in penology--employment of convicts for their exploitation by selfish interests on the one hand, and unemployment or else employment of such nature as tends to lower the standard of efficiency of the individual on the other hand. The evolution of labor unions has suppressed reform that makes for the criminal’s economical independence; and yet the criminal element is recruited mainly from the fourth estate. To date the history of penology shows some development of apprehenders and keepers in the practical side of the work, but at the prime expense of the apprehended. The producers at large pay the interest on the debt, whilst the principal is shouldered by the deficient themselves who are passing it along to the future generations.

As to the moral aspect of the problem with which the professional criminal confronts the nation, it must ultimately be determined by psychology. Intemperance, greed, lust and anger; these are the radical causes. Economical dependence is the first outgrowth of these known qualities but unknown quantities.

How are we going to reduce the overshadowing difficulty? By ostracism? By sterilization? By simple detaining repression without corresponding elimination of root causes? As for ostracism, folly flees a grave danger whilst moral courage fortified by intelligence faces and overcomes it. Ostracism revives and perpetuates caste divisions of society. Sterilization is as wrong in a larger moral view as infanticide in a smaller; the theory has emanated from higher intellectual, moral and spiritual darkness. It solves the criminal problem like national debt solves the economical problem--saddles a moral mortgage upon posterity. Detention without conferring assimilable moral uplift and increased economical efficiency is a parallel for the fabled delusion of the ostrich. Imprisonment as it obtains today costs much and produces little or nothing save waste. The maintenance of delinquents in rotting idleness or at labor which is subsequently unprofitable to the prisoner from the standpoint of talent and character development is an unbusiness-like as well as an inhumane make-shift which reacts upon society like a boomerang.

But it was not the aim to air views on criminology and penology in a preface, though it has seemed appropriate that the intelligence of interested men and women should be appealed to, as the widespread use of the following idioms has a deep significance. If this work achieves no other result than this it should be regarded as well worth while.

C. R. HELLYER City Detective Dept., Portland, Ore. and LOUIS E. JACKSON,

Portland, Oregon, October 3rd, 1914.

* * * * * * * *

Should you find any terms missing from the following vocabulary which in your opinion should be included in it you will confer a favor by communicating same to the publisher.

W. H. THORNTON, 872 Brooklyn St., Portland, Ore.

A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang Alphabetically Arranged with Practical Examples of Common Usages

[Illustration]

ADMAN, Noun

Current amongst literary confidence men. A fake advertising solicitor. See “HUNDRED PER CENT.”

ANGEL, Noun

General usage. A financial backer. Derived from “good thing.”

ARM MAN, Noun

Current amongst “heavyweights.” A strong arm man; a holdup; a highway robber. See “PUT-EM-UP.”

ARTILLERY, Noun

In general currency. Firearms of any description. See “ROD,” “ROSCOE,” “SMOKE WAGON.”

B. A., Noun

Current amongst literary confidence men. A book agent who commonly employs confidence methods for obtaining subscriptions or orders.

BADGE, Noun

Current amongst “hustlers” and the demi-monde. A badger; a blackmailer; an extortioner. See “SHAKE DOWN.”

BALLY HOO, Noun

Current amongst exhibition and “flat-joint” grafters. A free entertainment used for a decoy to attract customers. See “READER.”

BANNER, Noun

General currency. Used in the colloquialism “carrying the banner,” meaning to walk the streets all night or otherwise endure the hardship of loss of sleep.

BATCH, Noun

General currency. A number; a quantity; a lot; a great many.

BELCH, Noun

In general usage with all grafters. A protest; a complaint. See “SQUAWK,” “ROAR,” “HOLLER.” Example: “When he blowed his dough he put up an awful belch.”

BELCH, Verb

Idem Supra. Example: “He cannot stand the gaff without belching.” Also used to denote the giving of information. See “COME THROUGH.”

BEN, Noun

General usage. An overcoat; derived from Benjamin, in reference to the biblical coat of many colors.

BENNY, Noun

General usage. A sack coat; derived from Benjamin, some say the biblical character, while others say the New York manufacturer of men’s garments.

BENT, Adjective

General usage. Crooked; larcenous. See “TWISTED.” Example: “His kisser shows that he’s bent.”

BIG TOP, Noun

Current amongst circus grafters and “open-air men.” The large tent used by circuses; now evolved to include the meeting of the maximum exhibit possible in any given case. Example: “I’m flopping at the big top,” i. e., “I am rooming at the biggest hotel in town.”

BIT, Noun

General usage. A portion; a division; a share or a part of anything, as profits or proceeds of a transaction. Example: “You’re supposed to be in on anything that comes off, so you’re entitled to your bit.”

BIT, Noun

General usage, particularly amongst grafters who operate on the outside of the law. A prison sentence. Example: “He did a bit in Joliet.” Also a share. See “END.” Example: “If you don’t take a chance you’re entitled to no bit.”

BLOCK, Noun

General usage. A watch. See “SUPER[1],” “TURNIP.” Example: “The wire rung six blocks in the breaks,” i. e., “The tool (pickpocket) detached six watches from their rings in the crowded exit.” As a noun it has another meaning, i. e., a head. See “NOODLE.” Example: “He got his block sapped,” i. e., struck.

[1] There is no entry for “SUPER” in the text.

BLOOMER, Noun

Current with genteel grafters. An error; a failure. Example: “We framed wrong and scored a bloomer.”

BLOW, Verb

General usage. To cease; to get away; to lose; to miss something absent. Examples: “Blow! here comes a bull.” “We blowed some kale that night” (spent it). “Just as the touch was scored the boob blowed his poke.” “A shilliber’s work is to cop and blow,” i. e., to take and give in a gambling, ostensibly winning and losing in good faith from and to a confederate.

BLOW CARD, Noun

Current amongst gamblers and genteel grafters. Any useless thing or condition; financial embarrassment; the last card; the final play or thing in any series. Examples: “Don’t connect with this wop, he is on the blow card,” i. e., broke. “Pull this one off and call it the blow card.”

BOOB, Noun

In general usage amongst all sophisticated classes. An inferior in any specific sense; a victim; an uninitiated person when used by a “gonif.” Derived from booby.

BOOSTER, Noun

Used by confidential grafters. One who endorses a person, thing or action of immoral nature either by complementary action or by moral support; a helper; a confederate.

BOOSTER, Noun

In general currency amongst “gonifs.” A shoplifter; a thief who operates in merchandise stores in daytime. A “Boost” is an assistance; “The Boost” is the shoplifting profession.

BREAKS, Noun

Current amongst pickpockets. Any place of exit where throngs of people pour through en stream, as from a theatre, from a convention or other popular gathering, or from a street or railroad car or from a boat, all of which afford facilities for the pickpocket to operate under cover and in the press of unusual excitement. Example: “The guns are rooting into the swell mob at the Grand Opera breaks.”

BREAK UP, Noun

Current amongst thieves who specialize in plunder or loot. Melted silver or gold. See “MELT.”

BREEZE, Noun

General usage. Loquacity; guile; “hot air;” “bull con.”

BREEZE, Verb

General usage. To deceive; to beguile; to occupy one’s attention; to descant loquaciously. Example: “She breezed everybody on the line.” Also to move on, to leave, to come in or go out. See “BLOW.”

BREECH (britch), Noun

Current amongst pickpockets chiefly. The rear pants pockets, designated right and left breech, in contradistinction to the front pants pockets, for which see “KICK.” Example: “Fan his right breech for a leather,” i. e., “Feel of his right hip pocket for a pocketbook.”

BROAD, Noun

Current amongst genteel grafters chiefly. A female confederate; a female companion; a woman of loose morals. See “DONY,” “FLUZIE,” “MUFF[2].” Broad is derived from the far-fetched metaphor of “meal ticket,” signifying a female provider for a pimp, from the fanciful correspondence of a meal ticket to a railroad or other ticket, which latter originally was exclusively used by “gonifs” to indicate “broad,” or a conductor’s hat check. Also a playing card from the deck of fifty-two. A “three-card monte man” is a “BROAD SPIELER”; “Tipping the broads” is riding on a purchased transportation ticket; “Beating the broads” is corrupting the conductor or other collecting functionaire of a transportation line.

[2] There is no entry for “MUFF” in the text.

BUCK, Noun

Current generally. A dollar. Example: “They tax you one buck for a room without a bath at the cheapest hotel in the burg.”

BUFFALO, Noun

General usage in the northern states. A negro. See “DINGE.”

BUFFALO, Verb

General usage. To bluff; to intimidate; to frighten. Example: “The dick buffaloed him into tipping his plant.”

BUG, Noun

Used by alms beggars. A fearful looking sore artificially produced to simulate a burn or scald by the use of Spanish blister.

BULL, Noun

General usage. Misrepresentation; a lie; deception. Probably derived from the financial term bull, which in polite and legal circles signifies inflation, optimism. See “BREEZE.” Also used to indicate an officer of the law whose function is to apprehend or arrest, whether a constable, marshal, sheriff, detective or policeman.

BULL CON, Noun

Supra idem.

BUMP, BUMP OFF, Verb

Current amongst heavyweights and desperate characters chiefly, though understood by grafters generally. To kill; reflectively it signifies suicide. Examples: “He bumped himself off when he saw that the game was up.” “He copped a cuter and got bumped making a get-away.”

BUNCO, Noun

General currency. Deceit. Derived from “BUNCOMBE.”

BUNK, Noun

In general currency. Deceit; ostentation. Derived by corruption of form while retaining the meaning of “Bunco,” a contraction of buncombe. Example: “If you fall for this bunk you’re a simp.”

BUNK, Verb

General usage. To employ misrepresentation; to defraud; to cheat; to establish confidential relations with intent to abuse the influence so acquired. Example: “The frame-up in the play was to bunk the sucker with protection and scare team work.”

BURNEYS, Noun

Current amongst “hop-heads,” dope fiends. A catarrh powder containing an illicit proportion of cocaine, used as a snuff, administered with a combination detachable rubber and glass blowing tube.

BUZZARD, Noun

Current amongst pickpockets. A timid or amateur or low life “gun” who operates on “molls,” women. Example: “The moll buzzards tore into the jam at the market house on Saturday night and glommed a batch of pokes.”

BUZZER, Noun

Current mainly in western circles. An officer’s badge or star, the insignia of authority. Example: “Who are you? says he. For reply I flashed my buzzer.” Derived, doubtless, from the metal disc toy with starlike points which revolves by pulling crossed strings which pass through it.

CAN, Noun

General usage. A place of confinement; a prison; a cell. A practical metaphor for a receptacle designed to confine or bottle humans. Also a lavatory, toilet, urinal. Example: “He rumbled and made the can.” See “CANISTER.”

CAN, Verb

General usage. To discharge; to eliminate. Derived from the prankish cruelty of tieing a tin can to a dog’s tail, whose effectual purpose is to get rid of a useless or undesirable object. Example: “He made so many bad breaks we had to can him.”

CANISTER, Noun

Current chiefly amongst prison habitues. A prison. Also in use amongst crooks who resort to the use of weapons, denoting a firearm. Example: “He’ll stick his hands up if you flash the canister.”

CANNON, Noun

General currency. A revolver. In pickpocket parlance it signifies a pickpocket of indefinite order. See “GUN,” “GONIF.”

CASES, Noun

General usage. Observation; scrutiny; survey. Example: “Keep cases on his actions and you will learn his motive.” Also an ultimate, a finality, the last of a series of things or actions. Example: “He hasn’t turned a trick for so long that he is down to cases.” The term is derived from gambler’s parlance; in faro bank the recording of cards turned out of the dealer’s box is denominated “keeping cases,” whilst the last card to remain in the box is called the “case card.” “Down to cases” is used to signify that the cards are all dealt and played; the money or resources at an end.

CASE, Verb

General usage. To watch; to observe; to scrutinise.

CAT HOP, Noun

Current amongst gamblers. See “KITTY HOP.”

CENTURY, Noun

General usage. A hundred; a hundred dollar bill.

CHIP, Noun

Current amongst burglars and store prowlers. A cash-box; a till; a cash drawer without belling device. A cash receptacle with belling device is called a “combination chip,” or a “damper,” or a “dinger.” Example: “He copped a heel on the chip and glommed a century.”

CHIV, Noun

In general use amongst yeggs and rough-neck criminals. A knife; a sharp-edged tool or weapon. Derived from the French word “chef,” by reason of a cook’s use of a carving knife, though the French term for knife is “canif.”

CHIV, Verb

Supra idem. To cut; to slash; used only in regard to an attack upon a human. Example: “Beware of that geezer that he does not chiv you.”

CHOP, Verb

General usage. To quit; to cease.

CHUMP, Noun

General usage. An unsophisticated individual; a victim; an inferior; an “angel”; a “captain.” See “JOHN.”

CLATTER, Noun

General usage. A patrol wagon.

CLAW, Noun

Current amongst pickpockets. The “tool”; the “jerve”; the “wire”; or the expert operator in a “gun mob” who lifts the money and valuable collateral from the victim’s person. Example: “Our mob is working under one of the speediest claws in the country.”

CLAW, Verb

General usage. To snatch; to appropriate; to annex.

CLEAN, Adjective

General usage. A state of financial embarrassment; exhausted supply of a given property. Example: “He wasn’t very dirty when he got in town, but he is thoroughly clean now.”

CLEAN, Verb

General usage. To take all one possesses of a given commodity; to deplete one’s assets. Example: “He headed in wrong with that bunch and got cleaned.” Also used by exponents of the art of self-defense to indicate the infliction of defeat upon an opponent. Example: “He made a pass at me and I cleaned him in one, two, three.”

CLOUT, Verb

In currency amongst the plunderbund. To purloin any kind of valuables in any manner.

COME-ON, Noun

General usage. A prospective victim; a “steered” prospect.

COME THROUGH, Verb