Читать книгу A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words - Hotten John Camden - Страница 4

Cant and Slang are universal and world-wide.

Nearly every nation on the face of the globe, polite and barbarous, may be divided into two portions, the stationary and the wandering, the civilised and the uncivilised, the respectable and the scoundrel, – those who have fixed abodes and avail themselves of the refinements of civilisation, and those who go from place to place picking up a precarious livelihood by petty sales, begging, or theft. This peculiarity is to be observed amongst the heathen tribes of the southern hemisphere, as well as the oldest and most refined countries of Europe. As Mayhew very pertinently remarks, “it would appear, that not only are all races divisible into wanderers and settlers, but that each civilised or settled tribe has generally some wandering horde intermingled with, and in a measure preying upon it.” In South Africa, the naked and miserable Hottentots are pestered by the still more abject Sonquas; and it may be some satisfaction for us to know that our old enemies at the Cape, the Kafirs, are troubled with a tribe of rascals called Fingoes, – the former term, we are informed by travellers, signifying beggars, and the latter wanderers and outcasts. In South America, and among the islands of the Pacific, matters are pretty much the same. Sleek and fat rascals, with not much inclination towards honesty, fatten, or rather fasten, like body insects, upon other rascals, who would be equally sleek and fat but for their vagabond dependents. Luckily for respectable persons, however, vagabonds, both at home and abroad, show certain outward peculiarities which distinguish them from the great mass of lawful people off whom they feed and fatten. Personal observation, and a little research into books, enable me to mark these external traits. The wandering races are remarkable for the development of the bones of the face, as the jaws, cheek-bones, &c., high crowned, stubborn-shaped heads, quick restless eyes,1 and hands nervously itching to be doing;2 for their love of gambling, – staking their very existence upon a single cast; for sensuality of all kinds; and for their use of a CANT language with which to conceal their designs and plunderings.

The secret jargon, or rude speech, of the vagabonds who hang upon the Hottentots is termed cuze-cat. In Finland, the fellows who steal seal skins, pick the pockets of bear-skin overcoats, and talk Cant, are termed Lappes. In France, the secret language of highwaymen, housebreakers, and pickpockets is named Argot. The brigands and more romantic rascals of Spain, term their private tongue Germania, or Robbers’ Language. Rothwalsch, or Red Italian, is synonymous with Cant and thieves’ talk in Germany. The vulgar dialect of Malta, and the Scala towns of the Levant – imported into this country and incorporated with English cant – is known as the Lingua Franca, or bastard Italian. And the crowds of lazy beggars that infest the streets of Naples and Rome, and the brigands that Albert Smith used to describe near Pompeii – stopping a railway train, and deliberately rifling the pockets and baggage of the passengers – their secret language is termed Gergo. In England, as we all know, it is called Cant– often improperly Slang.

Most nations, then, may boast, or rather lament, a vulgar tongue, formed principally from the national language, the hereditary property of thieves, tramps, and beggars, – the pests of civilised communities. The formation of these secret tongues vary, of course, with the circumstances surrounding the speakers. A writer in Notes and Queries,3 has well remarked, that “the investigation of the origin and principles of Cant and Slang language opens a curious field of enquiry, replete with considerable interest to the philologist and the philosopher. It affords a remarkable instance of lingual contrivance, which, without the introduction of much arbitrary matter, has developed a system of communicating ideas, having all the advantages of a foreign language.”

An inquiry into the etymology of foreign vulgar secret tongues, and their analogy with that spoken in England, would be curious and interesting in the extreme, but neither present space nor personal acquirements permit of the task, and therefore the writer confines himself to a short account of the origin of English Cant.

The terms CANT and CANTING were doubtless derived from chaunt or chaunting, – the “whining tone, or modulation of voice adopted by beggars, with intent to coax, wheedle, or cajole by pretensions of wretchedness.”4 For the origin of the other application of the word CANT, pulpit hypocrisy, we are indebted to a pleasant page in the Spectator (No. 147): – “Cant is by some people derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a Presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who by exercise and use had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the pulpit in such a dialect that ’tis said he was understood by none but his own congregation, – and not by all of them. Since Master Cant’s time it has been understood in a larger sense, and signifies all exclamations, whinings, unusual tones, and, in fine, all praying and preaching like the unlearned of the Presbyterians.” This anecdote is curious, if it is not correct. It was the custom in Addison’s time to have a fling at the blue Presbyterians, and the mention made by Whitelocke of Andrew Cant, a fanatical Scotch preacher, and the squib upon the same worthy, in Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed, may probably have started the whimsical etymology. As far as we are concerned, however, in the present inquiry, CANT was derived from chaunt, a beggar’s whine; CHAUNTING being the recognised term amongst beggars to this day for begging orations and street whinings; and CHAUNTER, a street talker and tramp, the very term still used by strollers and patterers. The use of the word CANT, amongst beggars, must certainly have commenced at a very early date, for we find “TO CANTE, to speake,” in Harman’s list of Rogues’ Words in the year 1566; and Harrison about the same time,5 in speaking of beggars and Gipseys, says, “they have devised a language among themselves which they name CANTING, but others Pedlars’ Frenche.”

Now the word CANT in its old sense, and SLANG6 in its modern application, although used by good writers and persons of education as synonymes, are in reality quite distinct and separate terms. Cant, apart from religious hypocrisy, refers to the old secret language, by allegory or distinct terms, of Gipseys, thieves, tramps, and beggars. Slang represents that evanescent, vulgar language, ever changing with fashion and taste, which has principally come into vogue during the last seventy or eighty years, spoken by persons in every grade of life, rich and poor, honest and dishonest.7 Cant is old; Slang is always modern and changing. To illustrate the difference: a thief in Cant language would term a horse a PRANCER or a PRAD, – while in slang, a man of fashion would speak of it as a BIT OF BLOOD, or a SPANKER, or a NEAT TIT. A handkerchief, too, would be a BILLY, a FOGLE, or a KENT RAG, in the secret language of low characters, – whilst amongst vulgar persons, or those who aped their speech, it would be called a RAG, a WIPE, or a CLOUT. Cant was formed for purposes of secrecy. Slang is indulged in from a desire to appear familiar with life, gaiety, town-humour, and with the transient nick names and street jokes of the day. Both Cant and Slang, I am aware, are often huddled together as synonymes, but they are distinct terms, and as such should be used.

To the Gipseys, beggars and thieves are undoubtedly indebted for their Cant language. The Gipseys landed in this country early in the reign of Henry the Eighth. They were at first treated as conjurors and magicians, – indeed they were hailed by the populace with as much applause as a company of English theatricals usually receive on arriving in a distant colony. They came here with all their old Eastern arts of palmistry, fortune-telling, doubling money by incantation and burial, – shreds of pagan idolatry; and they brought with them, also, the dishonesty of the lower caste of Asiatics, and the vagabondism they had acquired since leaving their ancient dwelling places in the East, many centuries before. They possessed, also, a language quite distinct from anything that had been heard in England, and they claimed the title of Egyptians, and as such, when their thievish wandering propensities became a public nuisance, were cautioned and proscribed in a royal proclamation by Henry VIII.8 The Gipseys were not long in the country before they found native imitators. Vagabondism is peculiarly catching. The idle, the vagrant, and the criminal outcasts of society, caught an idea from the so called Egyptians – soon corrupted to Gipseys. They learned from them how to tramp, sleep under hedges and trees, to tell fortunes, and find stolen property for a consideration – frequently, as the saying runs, before it was lost. They also learned the value and application of a secret tongue, indeed all the accompaniments of maunding and imposture, except thieving and begging, which were well known in this country long before the Gipseys paid it a visit, – perhaps the only negative good that can be said in their favour.

Harman, in the year 1566, wrote a singular, not to say droll book, entitled, A Caveat for commen Cvrsetors, vulgarley called Vagabones, newly augmented and inlarged, wherein the history and various descriptions of rogues and vagabonds are given, together with their canting tongue. This book, the earliest of the kind, gives the singular fact that within a dozen years after the landing of the Gipseys, companies of English vagrants were formed, places of meeting appointed, districts for plunder and begging operations marked out, and rules agreed to for their common management. In some cases Gipseys joined the English gangs, in others English vagrants joined the Gipseys. The fellowship was found convenient and profitable, as both parties were aliens to the laws and customs of the country, living in a great measure in the open air, apart from the lawful public, and often meeting each other on the same bye-path, or in the same retired valley; – but seldom intermarrying, and entirely adopting each other’s habits. The common people, too, soon began to consider them as of one family, – all rogues, and from Egypt. The secret language spoken by the Gipseys, principally Hindoo and extremely barbarous to English ears, was found incomprehensible and very difficult to learn. The Gipseys, also, found the same difficulty with the English language. A rude, rough, and most singular compromise was made, and a mixture of Gipsey, Old English, newly-coined words, and cribbings from any foreign, and therefore secret language, mixed and jumbled together, formed what has ever since been known as the CANTING LANGUAGE, or PEDLER’S FRENCH; or, during the past century, ST. GILES’ GREEK.

Such was the origin of CANT; and in illustration of its blending with the Gipsey or Cingari tongue, dusky and Oriental from the sunny plains of Central Asia, I am enabled to give the accompanying list of Gipsey, and often Hindoo words, with, in many instances, their English adoptions.

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.

Here then we have the remarkable fact of several words of pure Gipsey and Asiatic origin going the round of Europe, passing into this country before the Reformation, and coming down to us through numerous generations purely in the mouths of the people. They have seldom been written or used in books, and simply as vulgarisms have they reached our time. Only a few are now cant, and some are household words. The word JOCKEY, as applied to a dealer or rider of horses, came from the Gipsey, and means in that language a whip. Our standard dictionaries give, of course, none but conjectural etymologies. Another word, BAMBOOZLE, has been a sore difficulty with lexicographers. It is not in the old dictionaries, although extensively used in familiar or popular language for the last two centuries; in fact, the very word that Swift, Butler, L’Estrange, and Arbuthnot would pick out at once as a telling and most serviceable term. It is, as we have seen, from the Gipsey; and here I must state that it was Boucher who first drew attention to the fact, although in his remarks on the dusky tongue, he has made a ridiculous mistake by concluding it to be identical with its offspring, CANT. Other parallel instances, with but slight variations from the old Gipsey meanings, could be mentioned, but sufficient examples have been adduced to show that Marsden, the great Oriental scholar in the last century, when he declared before the Society of Antiquaries that the Cant of English thieves and beggars had nothing to do with the language spoken by the despised Gipseys, was in error. Had the Gipsey tongue been analysed and committed to writing three centuries ago, there is every probability that many scores of words now in common use could be at once traced to its source. Instances continually occur now-a-days of street vulgarisms ascending to the drawing-rooms of respectable society. Why, then, may not the Gipsey-vagabond alliance three centuries ago have contributed its quota of common words to popular speech?

I feel confident there is a Gipsey element in the English language hitherto unrecognised; slender it may be, but not, therefore, unimportant.

“Indeed,” says Moore the poet, in a humorous little book, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, 1819, “the Gipsey language, with the exception of such terms as relate to their own peculiar customs, differs but little from the regular Flash or Cant language.” But this was magnifying the importance of the alliance. Moore knew nothing of the Gipsey tongue other than the few Cant words put into the mouths of the beggars, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Comedy of the Beggar’s Bush, and Ben Jonson’s Masque of the Gipseys Metamorphosed, – hence his confounding Cant with Gipsey speech, and appealing to the Glossary of Cant for so called “Gipsey” words at the end of the Life of Bamfylde Moore Carew, to bear him out in his assertion. Still his remark bears much truth, and proof would have been found long ago if any scholar had taken the trouble to examine the “barbarous jargon of Cant,” and to have compared it with Gipsey speech. As George Borrow, in his Account of the Gipseys in Spain, eloquently concludes his second volume, speaking of the connection of the Gipseys with Europeans: – “Yet from this temporary association were produced two results: European fraud became sharpened by coming into contact with Asiatic craft; whilst European tongues, by imperceptible degrees, became recruited with various words (some of them wonderfully expressive), many of which have long been stumbling-blocks to the philologist, who, whilst stigmatising them as words of mere vulgar invention, or of unknown origin, has been far from dreaming that a little more research or reflection would have proved their affinity to the Sclavonic, Persian, or Romaic, or perhaps to the mysterious object of his veneration, the Sanscrit, the sacred tongue of the palm-covered regions of Ind; words originally introduced into Europe by objects too miserable to occupy for a moment his lettered attention, – the despised denizens of the tents of Roma.”

But the Gipseys, their speech, their character – bad enough as all the world testifies – their history and their religious belief, have been totally disregarded, and their poor persons buffeted and jostled about until it is a wonder that any trace of origin or national speech exists in them. On the continent they received better attention at the hands of learned men. Their language was taken down, their history traced, and their extraordinary customs and practice of living in the open air, and eating raw or putrid meat, explained. They ate reptiles and told fortunes, because they had learnt it through their forefathers centuries back in Hindostan, and they devoured carrion because the Hindoo proverb – “that which God kills is better than that killed by man,”11– was still in their remembrance. Grellman, a learned German, was their principal historian, and to him we are almost entirely indebted for the little we know of their language.12

Gipsey then started, and partially merged into CANT, and the old story told by Harrison and others, that the first inventor of canting was hanged for his pains, would seem to be a fable, for jargon as it is, it was, doubtless, of gradual formation, like all other languages or systems of speech. The Gipseys at the present day all know the old cant words, as well as their own tongue, – or rather what remains of it. As Borrow states, “the dialect of the English Gipseys is mixed with English words.”13 Those of the tribe who frequent fairs, and mix with English tramps, readily learn the new words, as they are adopted by what Harman calls, “the fraternity of vagabonds.” Indeed, the old CANT is a common language to vagrants of all descriptions and origin scattered over the British Isles.

Ancient English CANT has considerably altered since the first dictionary was compiled by Harman, in 1566. A great many words are unknown in the present tramps’ and thieves’ vernacular. Some of them, however, bear still their old definitions, while others have adopted fresh meanings, – to escape detection, I suppose. “Abraham man” is yet seen in our modern SHAM ABRAHAM, or PLAY THE OLD SOLDIER, i. e., to feign sickness or distress. “Autum” is still a church or chapel amongst Gipseys; and “BECK,” a constable, is our modern cant and slang BEEK, a policeman or magistrate. “Bene,” or BONE, stands for good in Seven Dials, and the back streets of Westminster; and “BOWSE” is our modern BOOZE, to drink or fuddle. A “BOWSING KEN” was the old cant term for a public house, and BOOZING KEN, in modern cant, has precisely the same meaning. “Bufe” was then the term for a dog, now it is BUFFER, – frequently applied to men. “Cassan” is both old and modern cant for cheese; the same may be said of “CHATTES” or CHATTS, the gallows. “Cofe,” or COVE, is still the vulgar synonyme for a man. “Drawers” was hose, or “hosen,” – now applied to the lining for trousers. “Dudes” was cant for clothes, we now say DUDDS. “Flag” is still a fourpenny piece; and “FYLCHE” means to rob. “Ken” is a house, and “LICK” means to thrash; “PRANCER” is yet known amongst rogues as a horse; and “to PRIG,” amongst high and low, is to steal. Three centuries ago, if one beggar said anything disagreeable to another, the person annoyed would say “STOW YOU,” or hold your peace; low people now say STOW IT, equivalent to “be quiet.” “Trine” is still to hang; “WYN” yet stands for a penny. And many other words, as will be seen in the glossary, still retain their ancient meaning.

As specimens of those words which have altered their original cant signification, I may instance “CHETE,” now written CHEAT. Chete was in ancient cant what chop is in the Canton-Chinese, – an almost inseparable adjunct. Everything was termed a CHETE, and qualified by a substantive-adjective, which showed what kind of a CHETE was meant; for instance, “CRASHING CHETES” were teeth; a “MOFFLING CHETE,” a napkin; a “GRUNTING CHETE,” a pig, &c. &c. Cheat now-a-days means to defraud or swindle, and lexicographers have tortured etymology for an original – but without success. Escheats and escheatours have been named, but with great doubts; indeed, Stevens, the learned commentator on Shakespere, acknowledged that he “did not recollect to have met with the word cheat in our ancient writers.”14 Cheat, to defraud, then, is no other than an old Cant term, somewhat altered in its meaning,15 and as such it should be described in the next Etymological Dictionary. Another instance of a change in the meaning of the old Cant, but the retention of the word is seen in “CLY,” formerly to take or steal, now a pocket; – remembering a certain class of low characters, a curious connection between the two meanings will be discovered. “Make” was a halfpenny, we now say MAG, – MAKE being modern Cant for appropriating, – “convey the wise it call.” “Milling” stood for stealing, it is now a pugilistic term for fighting or beating. “Nab” was a head, – low people now say NOB, the former meaning, in modern Cant, to steal or seize. “Pek” was meat, – we still say PECKISH, when hungry. “Prygges, dronken Tinkers or beastly people,” as old Harman wrote, would scarcely be understood now; a PRIG, in the 19th century, is a pickpocket or thief. “Quier,” or QUEER, like cheat, was a very common prefix, and meant bad or wicked, – it now means odd, curious, or strange; but to the ancient cant we are indebted for the word, which etymologists should remember.16 “Rome,” or RUM, formerly meant good, or of the first quality, and was extensively used like cheat and queer, – indeed as an adjective it was the opposite of the latter. Rum now means curious, and is synonymous with queer, thus, – a “RUMMY old fellow,” or a “QUEER old man.” Here again we see the origin of an every day word, scouted by lexicographers and snubbed by respectable persons, but still a word of frequent and popular use. “Yannam” meant bread, PANNUM is the word now. Other instances could be pointed out, but they will be observed in the dictionary.

Several words are entirely obsolete. “Alybbeg” no longer means a bed, nor “ASKEW” a cup. “Booget,”17 now-a-days, would not be understood for a basket; neither would “GAN” pass current for mouth. “Fullams” was the old cant term for false or loaded dice, and although used by Shakespere in this sense, is now unknown and obsolete. Indeed, as Tom Moore somewhere remarks, the present Greeks of St. Giles, themselves, would be thoroughly puzzled by many of the ancient canting songs, – taking for example, the first verse of an old favourite:

But I think I cannot do better than present to the reader at once an entire copy of the first Canting Dictionary ever compiled. As before mentioned, it was the work of one Thos. Harman, a gentleman who lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Some writers have remarked that Decker19 was the first to compile a Dictionary of the vagabonds’ tongue; whilst Borrow,20 and Moore, the poet, stated that Richard Head performed that service in his Life of an English Rogue, published in the year 1680. All these statements are equally incorrect, for the first attempt was made more than a century before the latter work was issued. The quaint spelling and old-fashioned phraseology are preserved, and the reader will quickly detect many vulgar street words, old acquaintances, dressed in antique garb.21

ABRAHAM-MEN, be those that fayn themselves to have beene mad, and have bene kept either in Bethelem, or in some other pryson a good time.

ALYBBEG, a bedde.

ASKEW, a cuppe.

AUTEM, a churche.

AUTEM MORTES, married wemen as chaste as a cowe.

BAUDYE BASKETS, bee women who goe with baskets and capcases on their armes, wherein they have laces, pinnes, nedles, whyte inkel, and round sylke gyrdels of all colours.

BECK [Beek], a constable.

BELLY-CHETE, apron.

BENE, good. Benar, better.

BENSHIP, very good.

BLETING CHETE, a calfe or sheepe.

BOOGET, a travelling tinker’s baskete.

BORDE, a shilling.

BOUNG, a purse [Friesic, pong].

BOWSE, drink.

BOWSING-KEN, a alehouse.

BUFE [buffer, a man], a dogge.

BYNGE A WASTE, go you hence.

CACKLING-CHETE, a coke [cock], or capon.

CASSAN [cassam], cheese.

CASTERS, a cloake.

CATETH, “the vpright Cofe cateth to the Roge” [probably a shortening or misprint of Canteth].

CHATTES, the gallowes.

CHETE [see what has been previously said about this word].

CLY [a pocket], to take, receive, or have.

COFE [cove], a person.

COMMISSION [mish], a shirt.

COUNTERFET CRANKE, these that do counterfet the Cranke be yong knaves and yonge harlots, that deeply dissemble the falling sicknes.

CRANKE [cranky, foolish], falling evil [or wasting sickness].

CRASHING-CHETES, teeth.

CUFFEN, a manne [a cuif in Northumberland and Scotland signifies a lout or awkward fellow].

DARKEMANS, the night.

DELL, a yonge wench.

DEWSE-A-VYLE, the countrey.

DOCK, to deflower.

DOXES, harlots.

DRAWERS, hosen.

DUDES [or dudds], clothes.

FAMBLES, handes.

FAMBLING-CHETE, a ring on one’s hand.

FLAGG, a groat.

FRATER, a beggar wyth a false paper.

FRESHE-WATER-MARINERS, these kind of caterpillers counterfet great losses on the sea: – their shippes were drowned in the playne of Salisbury.

FYLCHE, to robbe: Fylch-man [a robber].

GAGE, a quart pot.

GAN, a mouth.

GENTRY COFE, a noble or gentle man.

GENTRY-COFES-KEN, a noble or gentle man’s house.

GENTRY MORT, a noble or gentle woman.

GERRY, excrement.

GLASYERS, eyes.

GLYMMAR, fyer.

GRANNAM, corne.

GRUNTING-CHETE, a pygge.

GYB, a writing.

GYGER [jigger], a dore.

HEARING-CHETES, eares.

JARKE, a seale.

JARKEMAN, one who make writings and set seales for [counterfeit] licences and pasports.

KEN, a house.

KYNCHEN CO [or cove], a young boye trained up like a “Kynching Morte.” [From the German diminutive Kindschen.]

KYNCHING MORTE, is a little gyrle, carried at their mothers’ backe in a slate, or sheete, who brings them up sauagely.

LAG, water.

LAG OF DUDES, a bucke [or basket] of clothes.

LAGE, to washe.

LAP, butter, mylke, or whey.

LIGHTMANS, the day.

LOWING-CHETE, a cowe.

LOWRE, money.

LUBBARES, – “sturdy Lubbares,” country bumpkins, or men of a low degree.

LYB-BEG, a bed.

LYCKE [lick], to beate.

LYP, to lie down.

LYPKEN, a house to lye in.

MAKE [mag], a halfpenny.

MARGERI PRATER, a hen.

MILLING, to steale [by sending a child in at the window].

MOFLING-CHETE, a napkin.

MORTES [motts], harlots.

MYLL, to robbe.

MYNT, gold.

NAB [nob], a heade.

NABCHET, a hat or cap.

NASE, dronken.

NOSEGENT, a nunne.

PALLYARD, a borne beggar [who counterfeits sickness, or incurable sores. They are mostly Welshmen, Harman says].

PARAM, mylke.

PATRICO, a priest.

PATRICOS KINCHEN, a pygge [a satirical hit at the church, Patrico meaning a parson or priest, and Kinchen his little boy or girl].

PEK [peckish], meat.

POPPELARS, porrage.

PRAT, a buttocke.

PRATLING-CHETE, a toung.

PRAUNCER, a horse.

PRIGGER OF PRAUNCERS, be horse stealers, for to prigge signifieth in their language to steale, and a Prauncer is a horse, so being put together, the matter was playn. [Thus writes old Thomas Harman, who concludes his description of this order of “pryggers,” by very quietly saying, “I had the best gelding stolen out of my pasture, that I had amongst others, whyle this book was first a printing.”]

PRYGGES, dronken Tinkers, or beastly people.

QUACKING-CHETE, a drake or duck.

QUAROMES, a body.

QUIER [queer], badde [see what has been previously said about this word].

QUYER CRAMP-RINGES, boltes or fetters.

QUIER CUFFIN, the iustice of peace.

QUYER-KYN, a pryson house.

RED SHANKE, a drake or ducke.

ROGER, a goose.

ROME, goode [now curious, noted, or remarkable in any way. Rum is the modern orthography].

ROME BOUSE [rum booze], wyne.

ROME MORT, the Queene [Elizabeth].

ROME VYLE [or Rum-ville], London.

RUFF PECK, baken [short bread, common in old times at farm houses].

RUFFMANS, the woods or bushes.

SALOMON, a alter or masse.

SKYPPER, a barne.

SLATE, a sheete or shetes.

SMELLING CHETE, a nose.

SMELLING CHETE, a garden or orchard.

SNOWT FAYRE [said of a woman who has a pretty face or is comely].

STALL [to initiate a beggar or rogue into the rights and privileges of the canting order. Harman relates, that when an upright-man, or initiated, first-class rogue, “mete any beggar, whether he be sturdy or impotent, he will demand of him whether ever he was ‘stalled to the roge’ or no. If he say he was, he will know of whom, and his name yt stalled him. And if he be not learnedly able to show him the whole circumstance thereof, he will spoyle him of his money, either of his best garment, if it be worth any money, and haue him to the bowsing ken: which is, to some typpling house next adjoyninge, and layth there to gage the best thing that he hath for twenty pence or two shillings: this man obeyeth for feare of beatinge. Then dooth this upright man call for a gage of bowse, which is a quarte potte of drink, and powres the same vpon his peld pate, adding these words, – I, G. P. do stalle the, W. T. to the Roge, and that from henceforth it shall be lawfull for thee to cant, that is to aske or begge for thi liuiug in al places.” Something like this treatment is the popular idea of Freemasonry, and what schoolboys term “freeing.”]

STAMPES, legges.

STAMPERS, shoes.

STAULING KEN, a house that will receyue stollen wares.

STAWLINGE-KENS, tippling houses.

STOW YOU [stow it], hold your peace.

STRIKE, to steale.

STROMMELL, strawe.

SWADDER, or Pedler [a man who hawks goods].

THE HIGH PAD, the highway.

THE RUFFIAN CLY THEE, the devil take thee.

TOGEMANS [togg], a cloake.

TOGMAN, a coate.

TO BOWSE, to drinke.

TO CANTE, to speake.

TO CLY THE GERKE, to be whipped.

TO COUCH A HOGSHEAD, to lie down and slepe.

TO CUTTE, to say [cut it is modern slang for “be quiet”].

TO CUT BENE WHYDDES, to speake or give good words.

TO CUTTE QUYER WHYDDES, to giue euil words or euil language.

TO CUT BENLE, to speak gentle.

TO DUP YE GYGER [jigger], to open the dore.

TO FYLCHE, to robbe.

TO HEUE A BOUGH, to robbe or rifle a boweth [booth].

TO MAUNDE, to aske or require.

TO MILL A KEN, to robbe a house.

TO NYGLE [coition].

TO NYP A BOUNG [nip, to steal], to cut a purse.

TO SKOWER THE CRAMPRINGES, to weare boltes or fetters.

TO STALL, to make or ordain.

TO THE RUFFIAN, to the Devil.

TO TOWRE, to see.

TRYNING [trine], hanging.

TYB OF THE BUTERY, a goose.

WALKING MORTE, womene [who pass for widows].

WAPPING [coition].

WHYDDES, wordes.

WYN, a penny.

YANNAM, bread.

Turning our attention more to the Cant of modern times, in connection with the old, we find that words have been drawn into the thieves’ vocabulary from every conceivable source. Hard or infrequent words, vulgarly termed crack-jaw, or jaw-breakers, were very often used and considered as cant terms. And here it should be mentioned that at the present day the most inconsistent and far-fetched terms are often used for secret purposes, when they are known to be caviare to the million. It is really laughable to know that such words as incongruous, insipid, interloper, intriguing, indecorum, forestal, equip, hush, grapple, &c. &c., were current Cant words a century and a half ago; but such was the case, as any one may see in the Dictionary of Canting Words, at the end of Bacchus and Venus,22 1737. They are inserted not as jokes or squibs, but as selections from the veritable pocket dictionaries of the Jack Sheppards and Dick Turpins of the day. If they were safely used as unknown and cabalistic terms amongst the commonalty, the fact would form a very curious illustration of the ignorance of our poor ancestors. One piece of information is conveyed to us, i. e., that the “Knights” or “Gentlemen of the road,” using these polite words in those days of highwaymen, were really well educated men, – which heretofore has always been a hard point of belief, notwithstanding old novels and operas.

Amongst those Cant words which have either altered their meaning, or have become extinct, I may cite LADY, formerly the Cant for “a very crooked, deformed, and ill-shapen woman;”23 and HARMAN, “a pair of stocks, or a constable.” The former is a pleasant piece of satire, whilst the latter indicates a singular method of revenge. Harman was the first author who specially wrote against English vagabonds, and for his trouble his name became synonymous with a pair of stocks, and a policeman of the olden time.

Apart from the Gipsey element, we find that Cant abounds in terms from foreign languages, and that it exhibits the growth of most recognised and completely formed tongues, – the gathering of words from foreign sources. In the reign of Elizabeth and of King James I., several Dutch, Spanish, and Flemish words were introduced by soldiers who had served in the Low Countries, and sailors who had returned from the Spanish Main, who like “mine ancient Pistol” were fond of garnishing their speech with outlandish phrases. Many of these were soon picked up and adopted by vagabonds and tramps in their Cant language. The Anglo-Norman and the Anglo-Saxon, the Scotch, the French, the Italian, and even the classic languages of ancient Italy and Greece, have contributed to its list of words, – besides the various provincial dialects of England. Indeed, as Mayhew remarks, English Cant seems to be formed on the same basis as the Argot of the French, and the Roth-Spræc of the Germans, – partly metaphorical, and partly by the introduction of such corrupted foreign terms as are likely to be unknown to the society amid which the Cant speakers exist. Argot is the London thieves’ word for their secret language, – it is, of course, from the French, but that matters not so long as it is incomprehensible to the police and the mob. Booze, or BOUSE, I am reminded by a friendly correspondent, comes from the Dutch, BUYSEN. Domine, a parson, is from the Latin; and DON, a clever fellow, has been filched from the Spanish. Donna and feeles, a woman and children, is from the Lingua Franca, or bastard Italian, although it sounds like an odd mixture of Spanish and French; whilst DUDDS, the vulgar term for clothes, may have been pilfered either from the Gaelic or the Dutch. Feele, a daughter, from the French; and FROW, a girl or wife, from the German – are common tramps’ terms. So are GENT, silver, from the French, Argent; and VIAL, a country town, also from the French. Horrid-horn, a fool, is believed to be from the Erse; and GLOAK, a man, from the Scotch. As stated before, the Dictionary will supply numerous other instances.

There is one source, however, of secret street terms, which, in the first edition of this work, was entirely overlooked, – indeed, it was unknown to the editor until pointed out by a friendly correspondent, – the Lingua Franca, or bastard Italian, spoken at Genoa, Trieste, Malta, Constantinople, Smyrna, Alexandria, and all Mediterranean seaport towns. The ingredients of this imported Cant are many. Its foundation is Italian, with a mixture of modern Greek, German (from the Austrian ports), Spanish, Turkish, and French. It has been introduced to the notice of the London wandering tribes by the sailors, foreign and English, who trade to and from the Mediterranean seaports, by the swarms of organ players from all parts of Italy, and by the makers of images from Rome and Florence, – all of whom, in dense thoroughfares, mingle with our lower orders. It would occupy too much space here to give a list of these words. They are all noted in the Dictionary.

“There are several Hebrew terms in our Cant language, obtained, it would appear, from the intercourse of the thieves with the Jew fences (receivers of stolen goods); many of the Cant terms, again, are Sanscrit, got from the Gipseys; many Latin, got by the beggars from the Catholic prayers before the Reformation; and many, again, Italian, got from the wandering musicians and others; indeed the showmen have but lately introduced a number of Italian phrases into their Cant language.”24 The Hindostanèe also contributes several words, and these have been introduced by the Lascar sailors, who come over here in the East Indiamen, and lodge during their stay in the low tramps’ lodging houses at the East end of London. Speaking of the learned tongues, I may mention that, precarious and abandoned as the vagabond’s existence is, many persons of classical or refined education have from time to time joined the ranks, – occasionally from inclination, as in the popular instance of Bamfylde Moore Carew, but generally through indiscretion, and loss of character.25 This will in some measure account for numerous classical and learned words figuring as Cant terms in the vulgar Dictionary.

In the early part of the last century, when highwaymen were by all accounts so plentiful, a great many new words were added to the canting vocabulary, whilst several old terms fell into disuse. Cant, for instance, as applied to thieves’ talk, was supplanted by the word FLASH.

A singular feature, however, in vulgar language, is the retention and the revival of sterling old English words, long since laid up in ancient manuscripts, or the subject of dispute among learned antiquaries. Disraeli somewhere says, “the purest source of neology is in the revival of old words” —

“Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake,”

and Dr. Latham honours our subject by remarking that “the thieves of London are the conservators of Anglo-Saxonisms.” Mayhew, too, in his interesting work, London Labour and London Poor, admits that many Cant and Slang phrases are merely old English terms, which have become obsolete through the caprices of fashion. And the reader who looks into the Dictionary of the vagabonds’ lingo, will see at a glance that these gentlemen were quite correct, and that we are compelled to acknowledge the singular truth that a great many old words, once respectable, and in the mouths of kings and fine ladies, are now only so many signals for shrugs and shudders amongst exceedingly polite people. A Belgravian gentleman who had lost his watch or his pocket-handkerchief, would scarcely remark to his mamma that it had been BONED – yet BONE, in old times, meant to steal amongst high and low. And a young lady living in the precincts of dingy, but aristocratic May-Fair, although enraptured with a Jenny Lind or a Ristori, would hardly think of turning back in the box to inform papa that she, Ristori or Lind, “made no BONES of it” – yet the phrase was most respectable and well-to-do, before it met with a change of circumstances. “A CRACK article,” however first-rate, would, as far as speech is concerned, have greatly displeased Dr. Johnson and Mr. Walker – yet both CRACK, in the sense of excellent, and CRACK UP, to boast or praise, were not considered vulgarisms in the time of Henry VIII. Dodge, a cunning trick, is from the Anglo-Saxon; and ancient nobles used to “get each other’s DANDER UP” before appealing to their swords, – quite FLABERGASTING (also a respectable old word) the half score of lookers-on with the thumps and cuts of their heavy weapons. Gallavanting, waiting upon the ladies, was as polite in expression as in action; whilst a clergyman at Paule’s Crosse, thought nothing of bidding a noisy hearer to “hold his GAB,” or “shut up his GOB.” Gadding, roaming about in an idle and trapesing manner, was used in an old translation of the Bible; and “to do anything GINGERLY” was to do it with great care. Persons of modern tastes will be shocked to know that the great Lord Bacon spoke of the lower part of a man’s face as his GILLS.

Shakespere, or as the French say, “the divine William,” also used many words which are now counted as dreadfully vulgar. “Clean gone,” in the sense of out of sight, or entirely away; “you took me all A-MORT,” or confounded me; “it won’t FADGE,” or suit, are phrases taken at random from the great dramatist’s works. A London costermonger, or inhabitant of the streets, instead of saying “I’ll make him yield,” or “give in,” in a fight or contest, would say, “I’ll make him BUCKLE under.” Shakespere, in his Henry the Fourth (Part 2, Act i., Scene 1) has the word, and Mr. Halliwell, one of the greatest and most industrious of living antiquaries, informs us, that “the commentators do not supply another example.” How strange, then, that the Bard of Avon, and the Cockney costermongers, should be joint partners and sole proprietors of the vulgarism. If Shakespere was not a pugilist, he certainly anticipated the terms of the prize ring – or they were respectable words before the prize ring was thought of – for he has PAY, to beat or thrash, and PEPPER, with a similar meaning; also FANCY, in the sense of pets and favourites, – pugilists are often termed the FANCY. The cant word PRIG, from the Saxon, priccan, to filch, is also Shakesperian; so indeed is PIECE, a contemptuous term for a young woman. Shakespere was not the only vulgar dramatist of his time. Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Brome, and other play-writers, occasionally put cant words into the mouths of their low characters, or employed old words which have since degenerated into vulgarisms. Crusty, poor tempered; “two of a KIDNEY,” two of a sort; LARK, a piece of fun; LUG, to pull; BUNG, to give or pass; PICKLE, a sad plight; FRUMP, to mock, are a few specimens casually picked from the works of the old histrionic writers.

One old English mode of canting, simple and effective when familiarised by practice, was the inserting a consonant betwixt each syllable; thus, taking g, “How do you do?” would be “Houg dog youg dog?” The name very properly given to this disagreeable nonsense, we are informed by Grose, was Gibberish.

Another Cant has recently been attempted by transposing the initial letters of words, so that a mutton chop becomes a cutton mop, a pint of stout a stint of pout; but it is satisfactory to know that it has gained no ground. This is called Marrowskying, or Medical Greek, from its use by medical students at the hospitals. Albert Smith terms it the Gower-street Dialect.

The Language of Ziph, I may add, is another rude mode of disguising English, in use among the students at Winchester College.