Milky ones, subs. phr. (common).—White linen rags. Milky-duds = white
clothes.—Matsell (1859).
Mill, subs. (pugilistic).—1. A fight; a set-to (q.v.).
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 36. We, who’re of the
fancy-lay, As dead hands at a mill as they.
1823. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom & Jerry, ii. 1. Cribb. Thank’ye,
gentleman, thank’ye—but as I see by our sporting oracle, ‘The
Dispatch,’ there’s a mill on foot—I’ll give you, ‘May the best man
win.’
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, ‘The Double Cross.’ The mill is o’er,
the crosser crost, The loser’s won, the vinner’s lost!
1843. Comic Almanack, 378, ‘Stoppage of the Mills.’ Indeed, I never
saw the like, Our minds with wonder it must fill, Though mills
ensue when people strike, The strikes have stopp’d full many a
mill.
1853. Diogenes, ii. p. 134. Bell’s Life the other day told us of
two noted pugilists who (we quote the very words), ‘had a mill for
200l.’ When the decimal coinage is established, they will be able
to have no less than five ‘mils’ for a penny.
1856. T. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School-Days, Pt. II. ch. v. A champion
was picked out on each side tacitly, who settled the matter by a
good hearty mill.
1860. The Druid, Post and Paddock, ‘The Fight for the Belt.’ By sea
and by land, in village and town, Nothing whatever seemed to go
down, Save the latest on dit of the mill.
1862. The Cork Examiner, 28 March. Since this little event there
have been ... some very exciting little mills.
1883. Saturday Review, 31 March, p. 398, col. 1. This apparently
harmless elderly victim was a retired light-weight prize-fighter,
and so, with the ready consent of everybody, a mill was arranged.