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

by Edward Ellis Morris

"On Sunday night an unfortunate Chinaman was so severely injured by the Richmond larrikins that his life was endangered."

1875. David Blair, in `Notes and Queries,' July 24, p. 66:

"Bedouins, Street Arabs, Juvenile Roughs in London; <i>Gamins </i> in Paris; Bowery Boys in New York; Hoodlums to San Francisco; Larrikins in Melbourne. This last phrase is an Irish constable's broad pronunciation of `larking' applied to the nightly street performances of these young scamps, here as elsewhere, a real social pestilence."

1885. H. Finch-Hatton, `Advance Australia,' p. 338:

"There is not a spare piece of ground fit for a pitch anywhere round Melbourne that is not covered with `larrikins' from six years old upwards."

1889. Rev. J. H. Zillmann, `Australian Life,' p. 159:

"It has become the name for that class of roving vicious young men who prowl about public-houses and make night hideous in some of the low parts of our cities. There is now the bush `larrikin' as well as the town `larrikin,' and it would be difficult sometimes to say which is the worse. Bush `larrikins' have gone on to be bushrangers."

1890. `The Argus,' May 26, p. 6, col. 7:

"He was set upon by a gang of larrikins, who tried to rescue the prisoner."

1891. `Harper s Magazine,' July, p. 215, col. 2: