Salaam, a compliment or salutation.—Anglo-Indian.
Salamander, a street acrobat and juggler who eats fire.
Saloop, SALEP, or SALOP, a greasy-looking beverage, formerly sold on stalls at early morning, prepared from a powder made of the root of the Orchis mascula, or Red-handed Orchis. Coffee-stands have superseded SALOOP stalls; but, in addition to other writers, Charles Lamb, in one of his papers, has left some account of this drinkable, which he says was of all preparations the most grateful to the stomachs of young chimney-sweeps. The present generation has no knowledge of this drink, except that derived from books. The word “slops”—as applied to weak, warm drink—is very likely derived from the Cockney pronunciation of SALOOP.
Salt, a sailor.
Salt, “it’s rather too SALT,” said of an extravagant hotel bill. Also, a sort of black mail or tribute levied on visitors or travellers by the Eton boys, at their triennial festival called the “Montem,” by ancient custom and privileges. It is now abolished. A periodical published at Eton many years ago for circulation amongst the boys was called “The Salt-box.” When a person about to sell a business connexion makes fictitious entries in the books of accounts, to simulate that a much more profitable trade is carried on than there really is, he is said to SALT the books—SALTING and COOKING being somewhat similar operations. At the gold diggings of Australia, miners sometimes SALT an unproductive hole by sprinkling a few grains of gold-dust over it, and thus obtain a good price from a “green hand.” Unpromising speculations are frequently thus SALTED to entrap the unwary, the wildest ideas being rendered palatable cum grano salis. And though old birds are not readily caught by chaff, the efficacy of SALT in bird-catching, so far as the young are concerned, is proverbial.
Salt-box, the condemned cell in Newgate.
Salt junk, navy salt beef. See [OLD HORSE].
Saltee, a penny. Pence, &c., are thus reckoned:—
| Oney saltee, a penny, from the Italian, | UNO SOLDO. |
| Dooe saltee, twopence | DUE SOLDI. |
| Tray saltee, threepence | TRE SOLDI. |
| Quarterer saltee, fourpence | QUATTRO SOLDI. |
| Chinker saltee, fivepence | CINQUE SOLDI. |
| Say saltee, sixpence | SEI SOLDI. |
| Say oney saltee, or SETTER SALTEE, | |
| sevenpence | SETTE SOLDI. |
| Say dooe saltee, or OTTER SALTEE, | |
| eightpence | OTTO SOLDI. |
| Say tray saltee, or NOBBA SALTEE, | |
| ninepence | NOVE SOLDI. |
| Say quarterer saltee, or DACHA | |
| SALTEE, tenpence | DIECI SOLDI. |
| Say chinker saltee, or DACHA | |
| ONEY SALTEE, elevenpence | DIECI UNO SOLDI, &c. |
| Oney beong, one shilling. | |
| A beong say saltee, one shilling and sixpence. | |
| Dooe beong say saltee, or MADZA CAROON, half-a-crown, or two shillings and sixpence. | |
⁂ This curious list of numerals in use among the London street folk is, strange as it may seem, derived from the Lingua Franca, or bastard Italian, of the Mediterranean seaports, of which other examples may be found in the pages of this Dictionary. Saltee, the cant term used by the costermongers and others for a penny, is no other than the Italian, SOLDO (plural, SOLDI), and the numerals—as may be seen by the Italian equivalents—are a tolerably close imitation of the originals. After the number six, a curious variation occurs, which is peculiar to the London cant, seven being reckoned as SAY ONEY, six-one, SAY DOOE, six-two = 8, and so on. Dacha is perhaps from the Greek δέκα, ten, which, in the Constantinopolitan Lingua Franca, is likely enough to have been substituted for the Italian. Madza is clearly the Italian MEZZA. The origin of BEONG has not yet been discovered, unless it be the French BIEN, the application of which to a shilling is not so evident; but amongst costermongers and other street folk it is quite immaterial what foreign tongue contributes to their secret language. Providing the terms are unknown to the police and the public generally, they care not a rush whether the polite French, the gay Spaniards, or the cloudy Germans help to swell their vocabulary. The numbers of low foreigners, however, dragging out a miserable existence in our crowded neighbourhoods, organ grinders and image sellers, foreign seamen from the vessels in the river, and our own connexion with Malta and the Ionian Isles, may explain, to a certain extent, the phenomenon of these Southern phrases in the mouths of costers and tramps. Professor Ascoli, in his Studj Critici, absurdly enough derives these words from the ancient commercial importance of Italian settlers in England, when they gave a name to Lombard Street!