The Ruffin cly the nab of the Harman beck, If we mawn’d Pannam, lap or Ruff-peck, Or poplars of yarum: he cuts, bing to the Ruffmans, Or els he sweares by the light-mans, To put our stamps in the Harmans, The ruffian cly the ghost of the Harman beck, If we heaue a booth we cly the Ierke. If we niggle, or mill a bowsing Ken Or nip a boung that has but a win Or dup the giger of a Gentry cofe’s ken, To the quier cuffing we bing, And then to the quier Ken, to scowre the Cramp ring, And then to the Trin’de on the chates, in the lightmans The Bube and Ruffian cly the Harman beck and harmans

Thus Englished.

The Diuell take the Constable’s head, If we beg Bacon, Butter-milke, or bread, Or Pottage, to the hedge he bids vs hie Or sweares (by this light) i’ th’ stocks we shall lie. The Deuill haunt the Constable’s ghoast If we rob but a Booth, we are whip’d at a poast. If an ale-house we rob, or be tane with a whore, Or cut a purse that has inst a penny, and no more, Or come but stealing in at a Gentleman’s dore To the Iustice straight we goe, And then to the Iayle to be shakled: And so {xxi} To be hang’d on the gallowes i’ th’ day time: the pox And the Deuill take the Constable and his stocks.”

Richard Head (says Mr Hotten), in his English Rogue, described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty Extravagant, 4 vols. 12mo., 1671–80, gave “a glossary of Cant words ‘used by the Gipsies’; but it was only a reprint of what Decker had given sixty years before,” and therefore merely taken from Harman too. ‘The Bibliography of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Language’ has been given so fully at the end of Mr Hotten’s Slang Dictionary, that I excuse myself from pursuing the subject farther. I only add here Mr Wood’s extracts from four of the treatises on this subject not noticed by Mr Hotten in the 1864 edition of his Dictionary, but contained (with others) in a most curious volume in the British Museum, labelled Practice of Robbers,—Press Mark 518. h. 2.,—as also some of the slang words in these little books not given by Harman[37]:

1. The Catterpillers of this Nation anatomized, in a brief yet notable Discovery of House-breakers, Pick-pockets, &c. Together with the Life of a penitent High-way-man, discovering the Mystery of that Infernal Society. To which is added, the Manner of Hectoring and trapanning, as it is acted in and about the City of London. London, Printed for M. H. at the Princes Armes, in Chancery-lane. 1659.

2. A Warning for Housekeepers; or, A discovery of all sorts of thieves and Robbers which go under these titles, viz.—The Gilter, the Mill, the Glasier, Budg and Snudg, File-lifter, Tongue-padder, The private Theif. With Directions how to prevent them, Also an exact description of every one of their Practices. Written by one who was a Prisoner in Newgate. Printed for T. Newton, 1676.

Glasiers, thieves who enter houses, thro’ windows, first remouing a pane of glass (p. [4]). {xxii}

The following is a Budg and Snudg song:—