Part 2
Thomas Moore, in a humorous little book, _Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress_, 1819, says, “The Gipsy language, with the exception of such terms as relate to their own peculiar customs, differs but little from the regular Flash or Cant language.” But this was magnifying the importance of the alliance. Moore, we should think, knew nothing of the Gipsy tongue other than the few Cant words put into the mouths of the beggars in Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Comedy of the Beggar’s Bush_, and Ben Jonson’s _Masque of the Gipsies Metamorphosed_,—hence his confounding Cant with Gipsy speech, and appealing to the Glossary of Cant for so-called “Gipsy” words at the end of the _Life of Bamfylde Moore Carew_, to bear him out in his assertion. Still his remark bears much truth, and proof of this would have been found long ago if any scholar had taken the trouble to examine the “barbarous jargon of Cant,” and to have compared it with Gipsy speech. George Borrow, in his _Account of the Gipsies in Spain_, thus eloquently concludes his second volume; speaking of the connexion of the Gipsies with Europeans, he says:—“Yet from this temporary association were produced two results; European fraud became sharpened by coming into contact with Asiatic craft; whilst European tongues, by imperceptible degrees, became recruited with various words (some of them wonderfully expressive), many of which have long been stumbling-blocks to the philologist, who, whilst stigmatizing them as words of mere vulgar invention, or of unknown origin, has been far from dreaming that a little more research or reflection would have proved their affinity to the Sclavonic, Persian, or Romaic, or perhaps to the mysterious object of his veneration, the Sanscrit, the sacred tongue of the palm-covered regions of Ind; words originally introduced into Europe by objects too miserable to occupy for a moment his lettered attention—the despised denizens of the tents of Roma.” These words might with very little alteration be ascribed to the subject of which this volume is supposed—indeed hoped—to be a handbook.
But the Gipsies, their speech, their character—bad enough, as all the world testifies, but yet not devoid of redeeming qualities—their history, and their religious belief, have been totally disregarded, and their poor persons buffeted and jostled about until it is a wonder that any trace of origin or national speech remains. On the Continent they received better attention at the hands of learned men. Their language was taken down in writing and examined, their history was traced, and their extraordinary customs and practice of living in the open air, and eating raw, and often putrid meat, were explained. They ate reptiles and told fortunes because they had learnt to do so through their forefathers centuries back in Hindostan; and they devoured carrion because the Hindoo proverb—“That which God kills is better than that killed by man”[10]—was still in their remembrance. This is the sort of proverb, we should imagine, that would hardly commend itself to any one who had not an unnatural and ghoule-like tendency anxious for full development. Grellman, a learned German, was their principal historian, and to him, and those who have followed him, we are almost entirely indebted for the little we know of their language. The first European settlement of the Gipsies was in the provinces adjoining the Danube, Moldau and Theiss, where M. Cogalniceano, in his _Essai sur les Cigains de la Moldo-Valachie_, estimates them at 200,000. Not a few of our ancient and modern Cant and Slang terms are Wallachian and Greek words, picked up by these wanderers from the East, and added to their common stock.
Gipsy, then, started, and was partially merged into Cant; and the old story told by Harrison and others, that the first inventor of canting was hanged for his pains, would seem to be a humorous invention, for jargon as it is, it was doubtless of gradual formation, like all other languages or systems of speech. Most of the modern Gipsies know the old Cant words as well as their own tongue—or rather what remains of it. As Borrow says, “The dialect of the English Gipsies is mixed with English words.”[11] Those of the tribe who frequent fairs, and mix with English tramps, readily learn the new words, as they are adopted by what Harman calls “the fraternity of vagabonds.” Indeed, the old Cant is a common language to the vagrants of many descriptions and every possible origin who are scattered over the British Isles.
English Cant has its mutabilities like every other system of speech, and is considerably altered since the first dictionary was compiled by Harman in 1566. A great many words are unknown in the present tramps’ and thieves’ vernacular. Some of them, however, still bear their old definitions, while others have adopted fresh meanings. “Abraham-man” is yet seen in our modern “sham Abraham,” or “play the old soldier”—_i.e._, to feign sickness or distress. “Autum” is still a church or chapel amongst Gipsies; and “beck,” a constable, is our modern Cant and Slang “beak,” once a policeman, but now a magistrate. “Bene,” or “bone,” stands for good in Seven Dials and the back streets of Westminster; and “bowse” is our modern “booze,” to drink or fuddle. A “bowsing ken” was the old Cant term for a public-house; and “boozing ken,” in modern Cant, has precisely the same meaning. There is little doubt, though, that the pronunciations were always as they are now, so far at least as these two instances are concerned. “Cassan” is both old and modern Cant for cheese; the same may be said of “chattes,” or “chatts,” the gallows. “Cofe,” or “cove,” is still a vulgar synonym for a man. “Dudes” was Cant for clothes; we now say “duds.” “Flag” is still a fourpenny-piece; and “fylche” means to rob. “Ken” is a house, and “lick” means to thrash; “prancer” is yet known amongst rogues as a horse; and to “prig,” amongst high and low, is to steal. Three centuries ago, if one beggar said anything disagreeable to another, the person annoyed would say, “Stow you,” or hold your peace; low people now say, “Stow it,” equivalent to “Be quiet.” There is, so far as the Slang goes, no actual difference in the use of these phrases, the variation being in the pronouns—in fact, in the direction. “Trine” is still to hang; “wyn” yet stands for a penny. And many other words, as will be seen in the Dictionary, still retain their ancient meaning.
As specimens of those words which have altered their original Cant signification, may be instanced “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,” was a napkin; a “topping-chete,” was the gallows, and a “grunting-chete,” was a pig. Cheat nowadays means to cozen or defraud, 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 Shakspeare, acknowledged that he “did not recollect to have met with the word cheat in our ancient writers.”[12] Cheat, to defraud, then, is no other than an old Cant term somewhat altered in its meaning,[13] 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; and with the remembrance of a certain class of low characters, a curious connexion between the two meanings is discovered. “Make” was a halfpenny: we now say “mag,”—“make” being modern Cant for getting money by any possible means, their apophthegm being—“Get money the best way you can, but _make_ it somehow.” “Milling” stood for stealing; it ultimately became a pugilistic term, and then faded into nothingness, “the cove wot loves a mill,” being a thing of the past. “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. “Peckish” is though more likely to be derived from the action of birds when eating, as all slang has its origin in metaphor. “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. He is also a mean, contemptible little “cuss,” who is not, as a rule, found in low life, but who could be very well spared from that of the middle and upper classes. “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 possibly indebted for the word, which etymologists should remember.[14] “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,—“rummy old bloke,” 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,”[15] nowadays, 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 Shakspeare in this sense, is now unknown and obsolete. Indeed, as Moore somewhere remarks, the present Greeks of St. Giles’s 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.”[16]
But perhaps we 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 Thomas Harman, who lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Some writers have remarked that Decker[17] was the first to compile a dictionary of the vagabonds’ tongue; whilst Borrow[18] and Moore 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 initiated will quickly recognise many vulgar street words as old acquaintances dressed in antique garb.[19]
~Abraham-men~ be those that fayn themselves to have beene mad, and have bene kept either in Bethelem, or in some other pryson a good time.
~Alybbeg~, a bedde.
~Askew~, a cuppe.
~Autem~, a churche.
~Autem mortes~, married women as chaste as a cowe.
~Baudye baskets~ bee women who goe with baskets and capcases on their armes, wherein they have laces, pinnes, nedles, whyte inkel, and round sylke gyrdels of all colours.
~Beck~ [Beak, a magistrate], a constable.
~Belly-chete~, apron.
~Bene~, good. _Benar_, better.
~Benship~, very good.
~Bleting chete~, a calfe or sheepe.
~Booget~, a travelling tinker’s baskete.
~Borde~, a shilling.
~Boung~, a purse. [_Friesic_, pong; _Wallachian_, punga.] The oldest form of this word is in Ulphilas, puggs; it exists also in the _Greek_, πουγγὴ.
~Bowse~, drink.
~Bowsing ken~, an alehouse.
~Bufe~ [Buffer, a man], a dogge.
~Bynge a waste~ [Avast, get out of the way] go you hence.
~Cackling chete~, a coke [cock], or capon.
~Cassan~ [Cassam], cheese.
~Casters~ [Castor, a hat], a cloake.
~Cateth~, “the vpright Cofe _cateth_ to the Roge” [probably a shortening or misprint of _Canteth_].
~Chattes~, the gallowes.
~Chete~ [see what has been previously said about this word.]
~Cly~ [a pocket], to take, receive, or have.
~Cofe~ [cove], a person.
~Commission~ [mish], a shirt.
~Counterfet cranke~, these that do counterfet the Cranke be yong knaves and yonge harlots, that deeply dissemble the falling sickness.
~Cranke~ [cranky, foolish], falling evil [or wasting sickness].
~Crashing chetes~, teeth.
~Cuffen~, a manne. [A _cuif_ in Northumberland and Scotland signifies a lout or awkward fellow.]
~Darkemans~, the night.
~Dell~, a yonge wench.
~Dewse a vyle~, the countrey.
~Dock~, to deflower.
~Doxes~, harlots.
~Drawers~, hosen.
~Dudes~ [or duds], clothes.
~Fambles~, handes.
~Fambling chete~, a ring on one’s hand.
~Flagg~, a groat.
~Frater~, a beggar wyth a false paper.
~Freshe water mariners~, these kind of caterpillers counterfet great losses on the sea:—their shippes were drowned in the playne of Salisbury.
~Fylche~, to robbe: Fylch-man, a robber.
~Gage~, a quart pot.
~Gan~, a mouth.
~Gentry cofe~, a noble or gentle man.
~Gentry cofes ken~, a noble or gentle man’s house.
~Gentry mort~, a noble or gentle woman.
~Gerry~, excrement.
~Glasyers~, eyes.
~Glymmar~, fyer.
~Grannam~, corne.
~Grunting chete~, a pygge.
~Gyb~, a writing.
~Gyger~ [jigger], a dore.
~Hearing chetes~, eares.
~Jarke~, a seale.
~Jarkeman~, one who makes writings and sets seales for [counterfeit] licences and passports.
~Ken~, a house.
~Kynchen co~ [or cove], a young boye trained up like a “Kynching Morte.” [From the German diminutive, _Kindschen_.]
~Kynching morte~, is a little gyrle, carried at their mother’s backe in a slate, or sheete, who brings them up sauagely.
~Lag~, water.
~Lag of dudes~, a bucke [or basket] of clothes.
~Lage~, to washe.
~Lap~, butter mylke, or whey.
~Lightmans~, the day.
~Lowing chete~, a cowe.
~Lowre~, money. [From the Wallachian Gipsy word LOWE, coined money. _See_ M. Cogalniceano’s _Essai sur les Cigains de la Moldo-Valachie_.]
~Lubbares~,—“sturdy Lubbares,” country bumpkins, or men of a low degree.
~Lyb-beg~, a bed.
~Lycke~ [lick], to beate.
~Lyp~, to lie down.
~Lypken~, a house to lye in.
~Make~ [mag], a halfpenny.
~Margeri prater~, a hen.
~Milling~, to steale [by sending a child in at a window].
~Moffling chete~, a napkin.
~Mortes~ [mots], harlots.
~Myll~, to robbe.
~Mynt~, gold.
~Nab~ [nob], a heade.
~Nabchet~, a hat or cap.
~Nase~, dronken.
~Nosegent~, a nunne.
~Pallyard~, a borne beggar [who counterfeits sickness, or incurable sores. They are mostly Welshmen, Harman says.]
~Param~, mylke.
~Patrico~, a priest.
~Patricos kinchen~, a pygge. [A satirical hit at the church, PATRICO meaning a parson or priest, and KINCHEN his little boy or girl.]
~Pek~, meat.
~Poppelars~, porrage.
~Prat~, a buttocke. [This word has its equivalent in modern slang.]
~Pratling chete~, a toung.
~Prauncer~, a horse.
~Prigger of prauncers~ be horse-stealers, for to prigge signifieth in their language to steale, and a PRAUNCER is a horse, so being put together, the matter was playn. [Thus writes old Thomas Harman, who concludes his description of this order of “pryggers,” by very quietly saying, “I had the best gelding stolen out of my pasture, that I had amongst others, whyle this book was first a-printing.”]
~Prygges~, dronken tinkers, or beastly people.
~Quacking chete~, a drake or duck.
~Quaromes~, a body.
~Quier~ [queer], badde. [_See ante_.]
~Quier cuffin~, the justice of peace.
~Quyer crampringes~, boltes or fetters.
~Quyer kyn~, a pryson house.
~Red shanke~, a drake or ducke.
~Roger~, a goose.
~Rome~, goode [now curious, noted, or remarkable in any way. _Rum_ is the modern orthography].
~Rome bouse~ [rum booze], wyne. [A name probably applied by canters coming on it for the first time, and tasting it suddenly.]
~Rome mort~, the Queene [Elizabeth].
~Rome vyle~ [Rum-ville], London.
~Ruff peck~, baken [short bread, common in old times at farm-houses].
~Ruffmans~, the wood or bushes.
~Salomon~, an alter or masse.
~Skypper~, a barne.
~Slate~, a sheete or shetes.
~Smelling chete~, a nose.
~Smelling chete~, a garden or orchard.
~Snowt fayre~ [said of a woman who has a pretty face or is comely].
~Stall~ [to initiate a beggar or rogue into the rights and privileges of the canting order. Harman relates that when an upright man, or initiated first-class rogue, “mete any beggar, whether he be sturdy or impotent, he will demand of him whether ever he was ‘stalled to the roge,’ or no. If he say he was, he will know of whom, and his name yt stalled him. And if he be not learnedly able to shew him the whole circumstance thereof, he will spoyle him of his money, either of his best garment, if it be worth any money, and haue him to the bowsing-ken: which is, to some typling house next adjoyninge, and layth there to gage the best thing that he hath for twenty pence or two shillings: this man obeyeth for feare of beatinge. Then dooth this upright man call for a gage of bowse, which is a quarte potte of drink, and powres the same vpon his peld pate, adding these words,—I, _G.P._, do stalle thee, _W.T._, to the Roge, and that from henceforth it shall be lawfull for thee to cant, that is, to aske or begge for thi liuing in al places.”]
~Stampers~, shoes.
~Stampes~, legges.
~Stauling ken~, a house that will receyue stollen wares.
~Stawlinge kens~, tippling-houses.
~Stow you~ [stow it], hold your peace.
~Strike~, to steale.
~Strommell~, strawe.
~Swadder~, or PEDLER [a man who hawks goods].
~The high pad~, the highway.
~The ruffian cly thee~, the devil take thee.
~Togemans~ [tog], cloake.
~Togman~, a coate.
~To bowse~, to drinke.
~To cant~, to speake.
~To cly the gerke~, to be whipped.
~To couch a hogshead~, to lie down and slepe.
~To cut bene whyddes~, to speake or give good words.
~To cut benle~, to speak gentle.
~To cutte~, to say.
~To cutte quyer whyddes~, to giue euil words or euil language.
~To dup ye gyger~ [jigger], to open the dore.
~To fylche~, to robbe.
~To heue a bough~, to robbe or rifle a boweth [booth].
~To maunde~, to aske or require.
~To mill a ken~, to robbe a house.
~Tonygle~ [coition].
~To nyp a boung~, [nip, to steal], to cut a purse.
~To skower the crampringes~, to weare boltes or fetters.
~To stall~, to make or ordain.
~To the ruffian~, to the Devil.
~To towre~, to see.
~Tryning~, hanging.
~Tyb of the butery~, a goose.
~Walking morte~, womene [who pass for widows].
~Wapping~ [coition].
~Whyddes~, wordes.
~Wyn~, a penny. [A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ suggests the connexion of this word with the Welsh, GWYN, white—_i.e._, the white silver penny. _See_ other examples under BLUNT, in the Dictionary; cf. also the Armorican, “GWENNEK,” a penny.]
~Yannam~, bread.
Turning attention more to the Cant of modern times, in connexion with the old, it will be found 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 strange that such words as incongruous, insipid, interloper, intriguing, indecorum, forestall, equip, hush, grapple, &c., &c., were current Cant words a century and a half ago, if we are to judge by the Dictionary of Canting Words at the end of _Bacchus and Venus_,[20] 1737. It is but fair, however, to assume that the compiler of the dictionary was but trading on the demand for Cant phrases, and was humbugging his readers. The terms 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; but it would be unfair and, indeed, idiotic to assume this without much stronger proof than the book in question gives of itself.
Amongst those Cant words which have either altered their meanings, or have become extinct, may be cited lady, formerly the Cant for “a very crooked, deformed, and ill-shapen woman;”[21] and Harman, “a pair of stocks, or a constable.” The former is a pleasant piece of sarcasm, whilst the latter indicates a singular method of revenge, or else of satire. Harman was the first author who specially wrote against English vagabonds, and for his trouble his name, we are told, became synonymous with a pair of stocks, or a policeman of the olden time.
Apart from the Gipsy element, we find that Cant abounds in terms from foreign languages, and that it exhibits signs of a growth similar to that of most recognised and completely-formed tongues,—the gathering of words from foreign sources. In the reign of Elizabeth and of King James I., several Dutch, Flemish, and Spanish words were introduced by soldiers who had served in the Low Countries and sailors who had returned from the Spanish Main, who, like “mine ancient Pistol,” were fond of garnishing their speech with outlandish phrases. Many of these were soon picked up and adopted by vagabonds and tramps in their Cant language. The Anglo-Norman and the Anglo-Saxon, the Scotch, the French, the Italian, and even the classic languages of ancient Italy and Greece, besides the various provincial dialects of England, have contributed to its list of words. Indeed, as has been remarked, English Cant seems to be formed on the same basis as the Argot of the French and the Roth-Sprach of the Germans—partly metaphorical, and partly by the introduction of such corrupted foreign terms as are likely to be unknown to the society amid which the Cant speakers exist. Argot is the London thieves’ word for their secret language; it is, of course, from the French, but that matters not, so long as it is incomprehensible to the police and the mob. “Booze,” or “bouse,” is supposed to come from the Dutch _buysen_, though the word has been in use in England for some hundreds of years. “Domine,” a parson, is from the Spanish. “Donna and feeles,” a woman and children, is from the Latin; and “don,” a clever fellow, has been filched from the Lingua Franca, or bastard Italian, although it sounds like an odd mixture of Spanish and French; whilst “duds,” the vulgar term for clothes, may have been pilfered either from the Gaelic or the Dutch. “Feele,” a daughter, from the French; and “frow,” a girl or wife, from the German—are common tramps’ terms. So are “gent,” silver, from the French _argent_; and “vial,” a country town, also from the French. “Horrid-horn,” a fool, is believed to be from the Erse; and “gloak,” a man, from the Scotch. As stated before, the dictionary will supply numerous other instances.
The Celtic languages have contributed many Cant and vulgar words to our popular vocabulary. These have come to us through the Gaelic and Irish languages, so closely allied in their material as to be merely dialects of a primitive common tongue. This element may arise from the Celtic portion of our population, which, from its position as slaves or servants to its ancient conquerors, has contributed so largely to the lowest class of the community, therefore to our Slang, provincial, or colloquial words; or it may be an importation from Irish immigrants, who have contributed their fair proportion to our criminal stock.