Street Solicitors.—Mendicity Societies’ clients, a class of beings that, as before mentioned, Bodkin makes it a point to take care of, in other words—beggars.
String of Onions.—Costermongers, and others of the lower class.
Stringer.—A mace cove, or line man, in plain English a cheat.
Stumpy.—Money.
Stunning Joe Banks.—Who was in all that’s flash, “bang-up to the knocker,” and for many years a very popular and much respected London character. He kept a renowned lush-crib called the “Hare and Hounds,” formerly the “Beggar in the Bush;” in No. 1, Buckeridge Street, within the classic region the “Holy Land,” or more frequently termed the Rookery in the heart of St. Giles’. Joe Banks, “mine host” of this boosing-ken; was a civil, rough, good natured, and very elaborate specimen of the genus homo, possessing a flow of spirits as extensive as his person. Good nature and conviviality were his leading characteristics, although his regular customers were composed of the veriest cadgers both male and female. The girls without shoes or stockings, clad in rags and jags. The male cadgers seldom or never used a comb or a pocket handkerchief:—
No small tooth-trap their locks disposes
No ’kerchiefs white attack their noses.
It was the fashion of the day for all the lively spirits—flash kiddies and country cousins curious in such matters to visit Stunning Joe Banks’ “City of the Cadgers” on such occasions, the persons and property of all were sacred while under his roof, and escorted through the intricacies of the “Rookery,” by Joe himself—or in his temporary absence by a well and truly trusted aide-de-camp! in order that they might not be in any way molested after leaving his house.
In conclusion we may add that “Stunning Joe Banks’s” drum was the resort of all classes, from the aristocratic marquis—especially he, who before he mizzled, hailed from Waterford!—to the downy vagabond, whose way of living was a puzzle to himself.
Sufferer.—A tailor or creditor.
Suspicion of Debt.—Owing two or three thousand pounds.