DOUBLE-SLANGS, double-irons.
DOWN, sometimes synonymous with awake, as, when the party you are about to rob, sees or suspects your intention, it is then said that the cove is down. A down is a suspicion, alarm, or discovery, which taking place, obliges yourself and palls to give up or desist from the business or depredation you were engaged in; to put a down upon a man, is to give information of any robbery or fraud he is about to perpetrate, so as to cause his failure or detection; to drop down to a person is to discover or be aware of his character or designs; to put a person down to any thing, is to apprize him of, elucidate, or explain it to him; to put a swell down, signifies to alarm or put a gentleman on his guard, when in the attempt to pick his pocket, you fail to effect it at once, and by having touched him a little too roughly, you cause him to suspect your design, and to use precautions accordingly; or perhaps, in the act of sounding him, by being too precipitate or incautious, his suspicions may have been excited, and it is then said that you have put him down. put him fly, or spoiled him. See [Spoil it]. To drop down upon yourself, is to become melancholy, or feel symptoms of remorse or compunction, on being committed to jail, cast for death, &c. To sink under misfortunes of any kind. A man who gives way to this weakness, is said to be down upon himself.
DOWN AS A HAMMER; DOWN AS A TRIPPET. These are merely emphatical phrases, used out of flash, to signify being down, leary, fly, or awake to any matter, meaning, or design.
DRAG, a cart. The drag, is the game of robbing carts, waggons, or carriages, either in town or country, of trunks, bale-goods, or any other property. Done for a drag, signifies convicted for a robbery of the before-mentioned nature.
DRAG-COVE, the driver of a cart.
DRAGSMAN, a thief who follows the game of dragging.
DRAKED, ducked; a discipline sometimes inflicted on pickpockets at fairs, races, &c.
DRAW, to draw a person, is to pick his pocket, and the act of so stealing a pocket-book, or handkerchief, is called drawing a reader, or clout. To obtain money or goods of a person by a false or plausible story, is called drawing him of so and so. To draw a kid, is to obtain his swag from him. See [Kid-Rig].
DRIZ, lace, as sold on cards by the haberdashers, &c.
DROP, the game of ring-dropping is called the drop.