BACON, “to save one’s BACON,” to escape.
BAD, “to go to the BAD,” to deteriorate in character, be ruined. Virgil has an exactly similar phrase, in pejus ruere.
BAGMAN, a commercial traveller.
BAGS, trowsers. Trowsers of an extensive pattern, or exaggerated fashionable cut, have lately been termed HOWLING-BAGS, but only when the style has been very “loud.” The word is probably an abbreviation for b—mbags. “To have the BAGS off,” to be of age and one’s own master, to have plenty of money.
BAKE, “he’s only HALF BAKED,” i.e., soft, inexperienced.
BAKER’S DOZEN. This consists of thirteen or fourteen; the surplus number, called the inbread, being thrown in for fear of incurring the penalty for short weight. To “give a man a BAKER’S DOZEN,” in a slang sense, means to give him an extra good beating or pummelling.
BALAAM, printers’ slang for matter kept in type about monstrous productions of nature, &c., to fill up spaces in newspapers that would otherwise be vacant. The term BALAAM-BOX has long been used in Blackwood as the name of the depository for rejected articles.
BALL, prison allowance, viz., six ounces of meat.
BALLYRAG, to scold vehemently, to swindle one out of his money by intimidation and sheer abuse, as alleged in a late cab case (Evans v. Robinson).
BALMY, insane.