The following article is from Pro and Con, December 14, 1872.
"Pidgin English is the name given to an absurd patois which is used in conversation between the Chinese celestials, and the outer barbarians. It appears to be a physical impossibility for a Chinaman to pronounce the letter r as in rough, cry, or curry, which he turns into lough, cly, and cully, as young English children often do. V, he turns into W, th into f, and to most words ending with a consonant, he adds a final syllable, as in find findie, catch catchee, &c. I, me, my, and mine, are all expressed by one word, my. The vocabulary consists of a few words of French origin, such as savey, one or two from the Portuguese, many common Chinese expressions, such as chop-chop for quick; man-man, which means stop; maskee, never mind, or do not mind; chin-chin, good-bye; welly culio, or muchee culio, very curious; Foss-pidgin-man, a priest; and Topside Galah, hurrah for the top, or Excelsior. There is also a plentiful use of the word pidgin, which is simply a corruption of our word business, but it appears to be applied with the utmost impartiality, to a variety of most incongruous phrases. As an example of every day talk, a lady telling her nurse to bring down her little girl and boy to see a visitor would say,—'Aymah, suppose you go topside catchee two piecee chiloe, bull chiloe, cow chiloe, chop chop.' From a gentleman well acquainted with China and the Chinese, we have received the following clever imitation of Excelsior, which is pronounced a very fair specimen of Pidgin English":—
TOPSIDE GALAH!
"That nightee tim begin chop-chop,
One young man walkee, no can stop,
Maskee colo! maskee icee!
He cally that flag wid chop so nicee
Topside Galah!
"He too muchee solly, one piecee eye
Look see sharp—so fashion—allo same my,