A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words / Used at the Present Day in the Streets of London; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Houses of Parliament; the Dens of St. Giles; and the Palaces of St. James.

by John Camden Hotten

[⁵²] “All our newspapers contain more or less colloquial words; in fact, there seems no other way of expressing certain ideas connected with passing events of every-day life, with the requisite force and piquancy. In the English newspapers the same thing is observable, and certain of them contain more of the class denominated Slang words than our own.”—Bartlett’s Americanisms, p. x., 1859.

[⁵³] The terms leader and article can scarcely be called Slang, yet it would be desirable to know upon what authority they were first employed in their present peculiar sense.

[⁵⁴] For some account of the origin of these nicknames see under [Mrs. Harris] in the Dictionary.

[⁵⁵] See [Dictionary].

[⁵⁶] Mayhew, vol. i., p. 24.

[⁵⁷] My informant preferred EARTH to ERTH,—for the reason, he said, “that it looked more sensible!”

[⁵⁸] The famous printers and publishers of sheet songs and last dying speeches thirty years ago.

[⁵⁹] The writer, a street chaunter of ballads and last dying speeches, alludes in his letter to two celebrated criminals, Thos Drory, the murderer of Jael Denny, and Sarah Chesham, who poisoned her husband, accounts of whose Trials and “Horrid Deeds” he had been selling. I give a glossary of the cant words:

• Thickun, a crownpiece.
• Dowry of Parny, a lot of rain.
• Stumped, bankrupt.
• Coopered, spoilt.
• Bossman, a farmer.
• ⁂ Drory was a farmer.
• Patter, trial.
• Tops, last dying speeches.
• Dies, ib.
• Croaks, ib.
• Burick, a woman.
• Topped, hung.
• Sturaban, a prison.
• Quid, a sovereign.
• James, ib.
• Clye, a pocket.
• Carser, a house or residence.
• Speel on the Drum, to be off to the country.
• All Square, all right, or quite well.