c. 1785. Wolcot [P. Pindar], Rights of Kings, Ode xviii. Your hemp cravats, your pray’r, your Tyburn miser.
1819. Scott, Bride of Lammermoor, ch. xvi. I wad wager twa and a plack that hemp plaits his cravat yet.
1823. Bee, Dict. Turf, s.v. Hempen Habeas. He will get over it by a hempen habeas.
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. iv. If ever I know as how you makes a flat of my Paul, blow me tight, but I’ll weave you a hempen collar: I’ll hang you, you dog, I will.
1886. Miss Braddon, Mohawks, ch. xxviii. A full confession were perhaps too much to expect. Nothing but the immediate prospect of a hempen necklace would extort that.
Hempen Fever. To die of a hempen fever, verb. phr. (old).—To be hanged. For synonyms, see Ladder.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Hempen Fever, a man who was hanged, is said to have died of a hempen fever; and in Dorsetshire to have been stabbed with a Bridport dagger; Bridport being a place famous for manufacturing hemp into cords.
1839. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 76. She had been married four times; three of her husbands died of hempen fevers.
Hempen-fortune, subs. (old).—Bad luck; a term for the gallows. [[303]]
1705. Vanbrugh, The Confederacy, v., 1. If ever I see one glance of your hempen fortune again, I’m off your partnership for ever.