The expression is also to be met with in Lord Lytton’s Paul Clifford:—
“Blow me tight, but that cove is a queer one! and if he does not come to be scragged,” says I, “it will only be because he’ll turn a rusty, and scrag one of his pals!”
Again, the same author puts in the mouth of his hero, Paul Clifford, the accomplished robber, the “Captain Crank,” or chief of a gang of highwaymen, a poetical simile, “to leap from a leafless tree”:—
Oh! there never was life like the Robber’s—so
Jolly, and bold, and free;
And its end—why, a cheer from the crowd below
And a leap from a leafless tree!
Penny-a-liners nowadays describe the executed felon as “taking a leap into eternity;” facetious people say that he dies in a “horse’s nightcap,” i.e., a halter, and the vulgar simply declare that he is “stretched.” The dangerous classes, to express that one is being operated upon by Jack Ketch, use the term “to be scragged,” already mentioned, or “to be topped;” and “may I be topped!” is an ejaculation often heard from the mouths of London roughs. Formerly, when the place for execution was at Tyburn, near the N. E. corner of Hyde Park, at the angle formed by the Edgware Road and the top of Oxford Street, the criminal brought here was said to put on the “Tyburn tippet,” i.e., Jack Ketch’s rope. The Latins used to describe one hanged as making the letter I with his body, or the long letter. In Plautus old Staphyla says: “The best thing for me to do, is with the help of a halter, to make with my body the long letter.” Modern Italians say of a man about to be executed, that he is sent to Picardy, “mandato in Picardia.” They also use other circumlocutions, “andare a Longone,” “andare a Fuligno,” “dar de’ calci al vento,” “ballar in campo azurro.” Again, the Italian “truccante” (thief), in his “lingue furbesche” (cant of thieves), says of a criminal who ascends the scaffold, the “sperlunga, or faticosa” (gallows), with the “margherita, or signora” (rope) adjusted on his “guindo” (neck) by the “cataron” (executioner), that he may be considered as “aver la fune al guindo.” The Spanish “azor” (thief, in Germania, or Spanish cant), under sentence of a “tristeza” (sentence of death), when about to be executed left the “angustia” (prison) to go to the gallows, or “balanza,” which is now a thing of the past, having been superseded by the hideous “garote.” The German “broschem-blatter” (thief, in “rothwelsch,” or German cant), when sentenced to death was doomed to the “dolm,” or “nelle,” on which he was ushered out of this world by the “caffler” (German Jack Ketch).
[Monter] (popular), d’un cran, to obtain an appointment superior to that one possesses already; to be promoted; —— à l’arbre, or à l’échelle, to be fooled. Alluding to a bear at the Zoological Gardens being induced to climb the pole by the prospect of some dainty bit which is not thrown to him after all. Also to get angry, “to get one’s monkey up;” —— en graine, to grow old. Literally to run to seed; —— des couleurs, le Job, or un schtosse, to deceive one by false representations, “to bamboozle;” —— une gamme, to scold, “to bully-rag;” —— un coup, to find a pretext; to lay a trap for one.
C’est des daims huppés qui veulent monter un coup à un ennemi.—E. Sue.