Austral English / A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia - Edward Ellis Morris

1894. `The Argus,' March 28, p. 5. col. 5:

"`Surfacing' or `loaming.' Small canvas bags are carried by the prospector, and top soil from various likely-looking spots gathered and put into them, the spots being marked to correspond with the bags. The contents are then panned off separately, and if gold is found in any one of the bags the spot is again visited, and the place thoroughly overhauled, even to trenching for the reef."

<hw>Swag</hw>, n. (1) Used in the early days, and still by the criminal class, in the ordinary sense of Thieves' English, as booty, plunder.

1837. J. Mudie, `Felonry of New South Wales,' p. 181:

"In short, having brought with her a supply of the `swag,' as the convicts call their ill-gotten cash, a wife seldom fails of having her husband assigned to her, in which case the transported felon finds himself his own master."

1879. R. H. Barham, `Ingoldsby Legends' (Misadventures at Margate):

"A landsman said, `I twig the drop,—he's been upon
the mill,
And `cause he gammons so the flats, ve calls him
Veepin' Bill.'
He said `he'd done me very brown, and neatly stowed
the swag,'
-That's French, I fancy, for a hat,—or else a carpet-bag."

(2) A special Australian use: a tramp's bundle, wrapt up in a blanket, called a Bluey (q.v.). Used also for a passenger's luggage.

1827. P. Cunningham, `Two Years in New South Wales,' vol. ii. p. 59:

"A number of the slang phrases current in St. Giles's Greek bid fair to become legitimatized in the dictionary of this colony: plant, swag, pulling up, and other epithets of the Tom and Jerry school, are established—the dross passing here as genuine, even among all ranks."