As specimens of those words which have altered their original cant signification, I may instance “CHETE,” now written CHEAT. Chete was in ancient cant what chop is in the Canton-Chinese,—an almost inseparable adjunct. Everything was termed a CHETE, and qualified by a substantive-adjective, which showed what kind of a CHETE was meant; for instance, “CRASHING CHETES” were teeth; a “MOFFLING CHETE,” a napkin; a “GRUNTING CHETE,” a pig, &c. &c. Cheat now-a-days means to defraud or swindle, and lexicographers have tortured etymology for an original—but without success. Escheats and escheatours have been named, but with great doubts; indeed, Stevens, the learned commentator on Shakespere, acknowledged that he “did not recollect to have met with the word cheat in our ancient writers.”[14] Cheat, to defraud, then, is no other than an old Cant term, somewhat altered in its meaning,[15] and as such it should be described in the next Etymological Dictionary. Another instance of a change in the meaning of the old Cant, but the retention of the word is seen in “CLY,” formerly to take or steal, now a pocket;—remembering a certain class of low characters, a curious connection between the two meanings will be discovered. “Make” was a halfpenny, we now say MAG,—MAKE being modern Cant for appropriating,—“convey the wise it call.” “Milling” stood for stealing, it is now a pugilistic term for fighting or beating. “Nab” was a head,—low people now say NOB, the former meaning, in modern Cant, to steal or seize. “Pek” was meat,—we still say PECKISH, when hungry. “Prygges, dronken Tinkers or beastly people,” as old Harman wrote, would scarcely be understood now; a PRIG, in the 19th century, is a pickpocket or thief. “Quier,” or QUEER, like cheat, was a very common prefix, and meant bad or wicked,—it now means odd, curious, or strange; but to the ancient cant we are indebted for the word, which etymologists should remember.[16] “Rome,” or RUM, formerly meant good, or of the first quality, and was extensively used like cheat and queer,—indeed as an adjective it was the opposite of the latter. Rum now means curious, and is synonymous with queer, thus,—a “RUMMY old fellow,” or a “QUEER old man.” Here again we see the origin of an every day word, scouted by lexicographers and snubbed by respectable persons, but still a word of frequent and popular use. “Yannam” meant bread, PANNUM is the word now. Other instances could be pointed out, but they will be observed in the dictionary.

Several words are entirely obsolete. “Alybbeg” no longer means a bed, nor “ASKEW” a cup. “Booget,”[17] now-a-days, would not be understood for a basket; neither would “GAN” pass current for mouth. “Fullams” was the old cant term for false or loaded dice, and although used by Shakespere in this sense, is now unknown and obsolete. Indeed, as Tom Moore somewhere remarks, the present Greeks of St. Giles, themselves, would be thoroughly puzzled by many of the ancient canting songs,—taking for example, the first verse of an old favourite:

Bing out, bien Morts, and toure and toure,

Bing out, bien Morts, and toure;

For all your duds are bing’d awast;

The bien cove hath the loure.[18]

But I think I cannot do better than present to the reader at once an entire copy of the first Canting Dictionary ever compiled. As before mentioned, it was the work of one Thos. Harman, a gentleman who lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Some writers have remarked that Decker[19] was the first to compile a Dictionary of the vagabonds’ tongue; whilst Borrow,[20] and Moore, the poet, stated that Richard Head performed that service in his Life of an English Rogue, published in the year 1680. All these statements are equally incorrect, for the first attempt was made more than a century before the latter work was issued. The quaint spelling and old-fashioned phraseology are preserved, and the reader will quickly detect many vulgar street words, old acquaintances, dressed in antique garb.[21]

Turning our attention more to the Cant of modern times, in connection with the old, we find that words have been drawn into the thieves’ vocabulary from every conceivable source. Hard or infrequent words, vulgarly termed crack-jaw, or jaw-breakers, were very often used and considered as cant terms. And here it should be mentioned that at the present day the most inconsistent and far-fetched terms are often used for secret purposes, when they are known to be caviare to the million. It is really laughable to know that such words as incongruous, insipid, interloper, intriguing, indecorum, forestal, equip, hush, grapple, &c. &c., were current Cant words a century and a half ago; but such was the case, as any one may see in the Dictionary of Canting Words, at the end of Bacchus and Venus,[22] 1737. They are inserted not as jokes or squibs, but as selections from the veritable pocket dictionaries of the Jack Sheppards and Dick Turpins of the day. If they were safely used as unknown and cabalistic terms amongst the commonalty, the fact would form a very curious illustration of the ignorance of our poor ancestors. One piece of information is conveyed to us, i.e., that the “Knights” or “Gentlemen of the road,” using these polite words in those days of highwaymen, were really well educated men,—which heretofore has always been a hard point of belief, notwithstanding old novels and operas.

Amongst those Cant words which have either altered their meaning, or have become extinct, I may cite LADY, formerly the Cant for “a very crooked, deformed, and ill-shapen woman;”[23] and HARMAN, “a pair of stocks, or a constable.” The former is a pleasant piece of satire, whilst the latter indicates a singular method of revenge. Harman was the first author who specially wrote against English vagabonds, and for his trouble his name became synonymous with a pair of stocks, and a policeman of the olden time.