BACK-SLANG, to enter or come out of a house by the back-door; or, to go a circuitous or private way through the streets, in order to avoid any particular place in the direct road, is termed back-slanging it.
BACK-SLUM, a back room; also the back entrance to any house or premises; thus, we’ll give it ’em on the back-slum, means, we’ll get in at the back-door.
BAD HALFPENNY. When a man has been upon any errand, or attempting any object which has proved unsuccessful or impracticable, he will say on his return, It’s a bad halfpenny; meaning he has returned as he went.
BANDED, hungry.
BANDS. To wear the bands, is to be hungry, or short of food for any length of time; a phrase chiefly used on board the hulks, or in jails.
BANG-UP. A person, whose dress or equipage is in the first style of perfection, is declared to be bang up to the mark. A man who has behaved with extraordinary spirit and resolution in any enterprise he has been engaged in, is also said to have come bang up to the mark; any article which is remarkably good or elegant, or any fashion, act, or measure which is carried to the highest pitch, is likewise illustrated by the same emphatical phrase.
BARKING-IRONS, pistols; an obsolete term.
BARNACLES, spectacles.
BASH, to beat any person by way of correction, as the woman you live with, &c.
BASTILE, generally called, for shortness, the Steel; a cant name for the House of Correction, Cold-Bath-Fields, London.