Dear Friend,[63]
Excuse the liberty, since i saw you last i have not earned a thick un, we have had such a Dowry of Parny that it completely Stumped Drory the Bossman’s Patter therefore i am broke up and not having another friend but you i wish to know if you would lend me the price of 2 Gross of Tops, Dies, or Croaks, which is 7 shillings, of the above-mentioned worthy and Sarah Chesham the Essex Burick for the Poisoning job, they are both to be topped at Springfield Sturaban on Tuesday next. i hope you will oblige me if you can, for it will be the means of putting a James in my Clye. i will call at your Carser on Sunday Evening next for an answer, for i want a Speel on the Drum as soon as possible. hoping you and the family are All Square,
I remain Your obedient Servant,
________
The numerous allusions in the Glossary to well-known places in London show that this rude speech was mainly concocted in the metropolis. The police have made themselves partially acquainted with the back slang, but they are still profoundly ignorant of the rhyming slang.
NOTE.
Since the foregoing was written, matters have changed considerably, even, which I much doubt, if they ever were as is stated; for, as I have already remarked, wherever opportunity has occurred, the costermonger, the patterer, the chaunter, and the various other itinerants who “work” London and the provinces, delight in making themselves appear a most mysterious body; and this, when added to their natural disinclination to commit themselves to anything like fact so far as their natural enemies—inquirers, and well-dressed inquirers in particular—are concerned, has caused all sorts of extraordinary stories to be set afloat, which have ultimately led to an opinion becoming prevalent, that the costermonger and his friends form a race of beings differing entirely from those who mix in the ordinary humdrum routine of respectable life. Nothing could really be much further from fact. Any one who has ever been driven by stress of circumstances or curiosity to take up a permanent or temporary residence in any of the lodging-houses which abound in St. Giles’s, Saffron Hill, Turnmill Street, and in all parts of the eastern district of the metropolis, will bear me out when I say that a more commonplace individual, so far as his inner life is concerned, than the London itinerant cannot possibly exist. Certainly he is ignorant, and takes a very limited view of things in general, and religion and politics in particular; but these peculiarities are held in common with his betters, and so cannot be regarded as the special prerogative of any class. If you ask him a question he will attempt to mislead you, because, by your asking the question, he knows you are ignorant of his way of life; and when he does not mystify from love of mischief, as it appears he does from all published books I have seen about him, he does so as a duty he owes his natural enemies, the parish authorities and the tract distributors, the latter of whom he holds in special abhorrence.
If the rhyming slang was ever, during its existence, regarded as a secret language, its secrecy has long since departed from it. Far easier of construction than even the back slang, it has been common, especially in several printing-offices I could name, for many years, while street-boys are great proficients in its small mysteries. The Glossary which follows here will explain a good deal of its mechanism; but it must be borne in mind that the rhymes are all matters of individual opinion, and that if one man says Allacompain means rain, another is quite justified in preferring Mary Blane, if his individual fancy lies in that direction. And now, if there is any secret about the rhyming slang, it is this—the rhyme is left out. This may at first seem extraordinary; but on reflection it will be seen that there is no other way of making the proceedings of its exponents puzzling to ordinarily sharp ears which have received the slightest clue. Thus, when the first word of a series only is used, and others in the sentence are made up from the back, the centre and various slangs, there is some hope of fogging an intruding listener to a private conversation. When a man is drunk, the rhyming slang would illustrate that fact by the words “Elephant’s trunk;” but the practised hand confines himself to the statement that “Bill’s Elephants.” “Bullock’s horn” represents to pawn, but an article is said to be “Bullocked” only; and so on through the list, providing always that the curtailment represents two syllables; if it does not, then the entire rhyme is given.
I think that this will be sufficient to guide those readers anxious to become proficient themselves, or to understand others who are themselves proficient at this item in the world of slang; and so I have nothing more to say except to call attention to the fact that, in all the other introductions, I have made my corrections, which have been neither few nor unimportant, in the text; but that I could see no way of working on the subject of the rhyming slang fairly and explicitly other than by means of this note.—Editor.