[1] “Swarms of vagabonds, whose eyes were so sharp as Lynx.”—_Bullein’s
Simples and Surgery, 1562._
[2] _Mayhew_ has a curious idea upon the habitual restlessness of
the nomadic tribes, _i.e._, “Whether it be that in the mere act of
wandering, there is a greater determination of blood to the surface of
the body, and consequently a less quantity sent to the brain.”—_London
Labour_, vol. i., p. 2.
[3] Mr. Thos. Lawrence, who promised an _Etymological, Cant, and Slang
Dictionary_. Where is the book?
[4] _Richardson’s Dictionary._
[5] _Description of England_, prefixed to _Holinshed’s Chronicle_.
[6] The word SLANG, as will be seen in the chapter upon that subject,
is purely a Gipsey term, although now-a-days it refers to low or
vulgar language of any kind,—other than cant. SLANG and GIBBERISH in
the Gipsey language are synonymous; but, as English adoptions, have
meanings very different from that given to them in their original.
[7] The vulgar tongue consists of two parts: the first is the CANT
Language; the second, those burlesque phrases, quaint allusions,
and nick names for persons, things, and places, which, from long
uninterrupted usage, are made classical by prescription.—_Grose’s
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue_, 1st edition, 1785.
[8] “Outlandish people calling themselves _Egyptians_.” 1530.
[9] In those instances, indicated by a *, it is impossible to say
whether or not we are indebted to the Gipseys for the terms. DAD, in
_Welsh_, also signifies a father. CUR is stated to be a mere term of
reproach, like “Dog,” which in all European languages has been applied
in an abusive sense. Objections may also be raised against GAD and
MAUND.
[10] JABBER, I am reminded, may be only another form of GABBER, GAB,
very common in Old English, from the _Anglo-Saxon_, GÆBBAN.
[11] This very proverb was mentioned by a young Gipsey to Crabb, a few
years ago.—_Gipseys’ Advocate_, p. 14.
[12] I except, of course, the numerous writers who have followed
Grellman, and based their researches upon his labours.
[13] _Gipseys of Spain_, vol. i., p. 18.
[14] _Shakes._ Hen. IV., 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.
New Books Published by JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 151B, PICCADILLY.
Now ready, SECOND EDITION, beautifully printed, Fcap. 8vo, pp. 316,
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=A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant=, and VULGAR WORDS, used at the
present day in the Streets of London; the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge; the Houses of Parliament; the Dens of St. Giles; and the
Palaces of St. James: preceded by a HISTORY OF CANT AND VULGAR LANGUAGE
_from the time of Henry VIII., showing its connection with the_ GIPSEY
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Wandering Tribes of London, the Costermongers, and the Patterers_. BY
A LONDON ANTIQUARY. Fcp. 8vo. _extra cloth_. WITH A CURIOUS WOODCUT,
“=A Cadger’s Map of a Beggar’s District=,” _and Explanation of_ THE
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“Rabble-charming words, which carry so much wild-fire wrapt up in
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MOST OF WHICH ARE CONTAINED IN NO ENGLISH DICTIONARY whatever. The
origin of many cant and slang words is also traced.