and Dr. Latham remarks that “the thieves of London are the conservators of Anglo-Saxonisms.” A young gentleman from Belgravia, who had lost his watch or his pocket-handkerchief, would scarcely remark to his mamma that it had been “boned”—yet “bone,” in old times, meant, amongst high and low, to steal. And a young lady living in the precincts of dingy but aristocratic Mayfair, although enraptured with a Jenny Lind or a Ristori, would hardly think of turning back in the box to inform papa that she (Ristori or Lind) “made no ‘bones’ of it”—yet the phrase was most respectable and well-to-do before it met with a change of circumstances. Possibly fashion, in its journey from east to west, left certain phrases and metaphors behind, which being annexed by the newcomers, sank gradually in the social scale until they ultimately passed out of the written language altogether, and became “flash” or Slang. “A ‘crack’ article,” however first-rate, would have greatly displeased Dr. Johnson and Mr. Walker—yet both crack, in the sense of excellent, and crack up, to boast or praise, were not considered vulgarisms in the time of Henry VIII. The former term is used frequently nowadays, as a kind of polite and modified Slang—as a “crack” regiment, a “crack” shot, &c. “Dodge,” a cunning trick, is from the Anglo-Saxon; and ancient nobles used to “get each other’s ‘dander’ up” before appealing to their swords,—quite “flabbergasting” (also a respectable old word) the half-score of lookers-on with the thumps and cuts of their heavy weapons. “Gallivanting,” waiting upon the ladies, was as polite in expression as in action; whilst a clergyman at Paule’s Crosse thought nothing of bidding a noisy hearer “hold his ‘gab,’” or “shut up his ‘gob.’” But then the essence of preaching was to indulge in idiomatic phrases and colloquialisms—a practice now almost peculiar to itinerant “ranters.” “Gadding,” roaming about in an idle and vacant manner, was used in an old translation of the Bible; and “to do anything ‘gingerly’” was to do it with great care. Persons of modern affected tastes will be shocked to know that the great Lord Bacon spoke of the lower part of a man’s face as his “gills,” though the expression is not more objectionable than the generality of metaphor, and is considerably more respectable than many words admitted to the genteel—we use the word advisedly—vocabulary.

Shakspeare also used many words which are now counted dreadfully vulgar. “‘Clean’ gone,” in the sense of out of sight, or entirely away; “you took me all ‘a-mort,’” or confounded me; “it wont ‘fadge,’” or suit, are phrases taken at random from the great dramatist’s works. These phrases are the natural outcome of the poet’s truth to life in the characters he portrayed. A London costermonger, or inhabitant of the streets, instead of saying, “I’ll make him yield,” or “give in,” in a fight or contest, would say, “I’ll make him ‘buckle’ under.” Shakspeare in his Henry the Fourth (part ii. act i. scene 1), has the word; and Mr. Halliwell, one of the greatest and most industrious of living antiquaries, informs us that “the commentators do not supply another example.” If Shakspeare was not a pugilist, he certainly anticipated the terms of the prize-ring—or they were respectable words before the prize-ring was thought of—for he has “pay,” to beat or thrash, and “pepper,” with a similar meaning; also “fancy,” in the sense of pets and favourites,—pugilists are often termed “the ‘fancy.’” The origin of the term, as applied to them, has, however, never been satisfactorily decided, though Pierce Egan and others since his time have speculated ingeniously on the subject. The Cant word “prig,” from the Saxon priccan, to filch, is also Shakspearian; so, indeed, is “piece,” a contemptuous term for a young woman. Shakspeare was not the only vulgar dramatist of his time. Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Brome, and other play-writers, occasionally, and very naturally, put Cant words into the mouths of their low characters, or employed old words which have since degenerated into vulgarisms. “Crusty,” poor tempered; “two of a kidney,” two of a sort; “lark,” a piece of fun; “lug,” to pull; “bung,” to give or pass; “pickle,” a sad plight; “frump,” to mock, are a few specimens casually picked from the works of the old histrionic writers.

One old English mode of canting, simple enough, but affected only by the most miserable impostors, was the inserting a consonant betwixt each syllable; thus, taking g, “How do you do?” would be “Howg dog youg dog?” The name very properly given to this disagreeable nonsense, we are informed by Grose, was gibberish.

Another slang has been manufactured by transposing the initial letters of words, so that a mutton chop becomes a chutton mop, and a pint of stout a stint of pout; but it is satisfactory to know that it has gained no ground, as it is remarkable for nothing so much as poverty of resource on the part of its inventors. This is called “Marrowskying,” or “Medical Greek,” from its use by medical students at the hospitals. Albert Smith termed it the “Gower Street Dialect,” and referred to it occasionally in his best-known works.

The “Language of Ziph,” it may be noted, is another rude mode of disguising English, in use among the students at Winchester College. Some notices of this method of conveying secret information, with an extensive Glossary of the Words, Phrases, Customs, &c., peculiar to the College, may be found in Mr. Mansfield’s School Life at Winchester College. It is certainly too puerile a specimen of work to find place here.

ACCOUNT
OF THE
HIEROGLYPHICS USED BY VAGABONDS.

One of the most singular chapters in a history of vagabondism would certainly be “An Account of the Hieroglyphic Signs used by Tramps and Thieves,” and it certainly would not be the least interesting. The reader may be startled to know that, in addition to a secret language, the wandering tribes of this country have private marks and symbols with which to score their successes, failures, and advice to succeeding beggars; in fact, there is no doubt that the country is really dotted over with beggars’ finger-posts and guide-stones. The subject was not long since brought under the attention of the Government by Mr. Rawlinson.[24] “There is,” he says in his report, “a sort of blackguards’ literature, and the initiated understand each other by Slang [Cant] terms, by pantomimic signs, and by hieroglyphics. The vagrant’s mark may be seen in Havant, on corners of streets, on door-posts, on house-steps. Simple as these chalk-lines appear, they inform the succeeding vagrants of all they require to know; and a few white scratches may say, ‘Be importunate,’ or ‘Pass on.’”

Another very curious account was taken from a provincial newspaper, published in 1849, and forwarded to Notes and Queries,[25] under the head of Mendicant Freemasonry. “Persons,” remarks the writer, “indiscreet enough to open their purses to the relief of the beggar tribe, would do well to take a readily-learned lesson as to the folly of that misguided benevolence which encourages and perpetuates vagabondism. Every door or passage is pregnant with instruction as to the error committed by the patron of beggars; as the beggar-marks show that a system of freemasonry is followed, by which a beggar knows whether it will be worth his while to call into a passage or knock at a door. Let any one examine the entrances to the passages in any town, and there he will find chalk marks, unintelligible to him, but significant enough to beggars. If a thousand towns are examined, the same marks will be found at every passage entrance. The passage mark is a cypher with a twisted tail; in some cases the tail projects into the passage, in others outwardly; thus seeming to indicate whether the houses down the passage are worth calling at or not. Almost every door has its marks; these are varied. In some cases there is a cross on the brickwork, in others a cypher; the figures 1, 2, 3 are also used. Every person may for himself test the accuracy of these statements by the examination of the brickwork near his own doorway—thus demonstrating that mendicity is a regular trade, carried out upon a system calculated to save time, and realize the largest profits.” These remarks refer mainly to provincial towns, London being looked upon as the tramps’ home, and therefore too “fly” or experienced to be duped by such means. The title it obtains, that of “the Start,” or first place in everything, is significant of this.

Provincial residents, who are more likely to view the foregoing extract with an eye of suspicion than are those who live in a position to constantly watch for and profit by evidences of the secret intercommunication indulged in by the dangerous classes, should note, in favour of the extract given, how significant is the practice of tramps and beggars calling in unfrequented localities, and how obvious it is that they are directed by a code of signals at once complete and imperious. It is bad for a tramp who is discovered disobeying secret orders. He is marked out and subjected to all kinds of annoyance by means of decoy hieroglyphs, until his life becomes a burden to him, and he is compelled to starve or—most horrible of alternatives—go to work.

The only other notice of the hieroglyphs of vagabonds worth remarking is in Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor.[26] Mayhew obtained his information from two tramps, who stated that hawkers employ these signs as well as beggars. One tramp thus described the method of “working”[27] a small town. “Two hawkers (‘pals’[27]) go together, but separate when they enter a village, one taking one side of the road, and selling different things, and so as to inform each other as to the character of the people at whose houses they call, they chalk certain marks on their door-posts.” Another informant stated that “if a ‘patterer’[27] has been ‘crabbed’” (that is, offended by refusal or exposure) “at any of the ‘cribs’” (houses), “he mostly chalks a signal at or near the door.” These hawkers were not of the ordinary, but of the tramp, class, who carried goods more as a blind to their real designs than for the purposes of sale. They, in fact, represented the worst kinds of the two classes. The law has comparatively recently improved these nondescript gentry off the face of the country, and the hawker of the present day is generally a man more sinned against than sinning.

Another use is also made of hieroglyphs. Charts of successful begging neighbourhoods are rudely drawn, and symbolical signs attached to each house to show whether benevolent or adverse.[28] “In many cases there is over the kitchen mantelpiece” of a tramps’ lodging-house “a map of the district, dotted here and there with memorandums of failure or success.” A correct facsimile of one of these singular maps is given in this book. It was obtained from the patterers and tramps who supplied a great many words for this work, and who were employed by the original publisher in collecting Old Ballads, Christmas Carols, Dying Speeches, and Last Lamentations, as materials for a History of Popular Literature. The reader will, no doubt, be amused with the drawing. The locality depicted is near Maidstone, in Kent; and it was probably sketched by a wandering Screever[29] in payment for a night’s lodging. The English practice of marking everything, and scratching names on public property, extends itself to the tribe of vagabonds. On the map, as may be seen in the left-hand corner, some Traveller[29] has drawn a favourite or noted female, singularly nicknamed Three-quarter Sarah. What were the peculiar accomplishments of this lady to demand so uncommon a name, the reader will be at a loss to discover; but a patterer says it probably refers to a shuffling dance of that name, common in tramps’ lodging-houses, and in which “¾ Sarah” may have been a proficient. Above her, three beggars or hawkers have reckoned their day’s earnings, amounting to 13s., and on the right a tolerably correct sketch of a low hawker, or cadger, is drawn. “To Dover, the nigh way,” is the exact phraseology; and “hup here,” a fair specimen of the self-acquired education of the draughtsman. No key or explanation to the hieroglyphs was given in the original, because it would have been superfluous, when every inmate of the lodging-house knew the marks from his cradle—or rather his mother’s back.

Should there be no map, in most lodging-houses there is an old man who is guide to every “walk” in the vicinity, and who can tell on every round each house that is “good for a cold tatur.” The hieroglyphs that are used are:—

	No good; too poor, and know too much.
	Stop,—If you have what they want, they will buy. They are pretty “fly” (knowing).
	Go in this direction, it is better than the other road. Nothing that way.
	Bone (good). Safe for a “cold tatur,” if for nothing else. “Cheese your patter” (don’t talk much) here.
	Cooper’d (spoilt), by too many tramps calling there.
	Gammy (unfavourable), like to have you taken up. Mind the dog.
	Flummuxed (dangerous), sure of a month in “quod” (prison).
	Religious, but tidy on the whole.

Where did these signs come from? and when were they first used? are questions which have been asked again and again, and the answers have been many and various. Knowing the character of the Gipsies, and ascertaining from a tramp that they are well acquainted with the hieroglyphs, “and have been as long ago as ever he could remember,” there is little fear of being wrong in ascribing the invention to them. How strange it would be if some modern Belzoni, or Champollion—say Mr. George Smith, for instance—discovered in these beggars’ marks traces of ancient Egyptian or Hindoo sign-writing!

That the Gipsies were in the habit of leaving memorials of the road they had taken, and the successes that had befallen them, is upon record. In an old book, The Triumph of Wit, 1724, there is a passage which appears to have been copied from some older work, and it runs thus:—“The Gipsies set out twice a year, and scatter all over England, each parcel having their appointed stages, that they may not interfere, nor hinder each other; and for that purpose, when they set forward in the country, they stick up boughs in the way of divers kinds, according as it is agreed among them, that one company may know which way another is gone, and so take another road.” The works of Hoyland and Borrow supply other instances.

It would be hardly fair to close this subject without drawing attention to the extraordinary statement that, actually on the threshold of the gibbet, the sign of the vagabond was to be met with! “The murderer’s signal is even exhibited from the gallows; as a red handkerchief held in the hand of the felon about to be executed is a token that he dies without having betrayed any professional secrets.”[30] Private executions have of course rendered this custom obsolete, even if it ever existed.

Since the first editions of this work were published, the publishers have received from various parts of England numerous evidences of the still active use of beggars’ marks and mendicant hieroglyphs. One gentleman writes from Great Yarmouth to say that, whilst residing in Norwich, he used frequently to see them on the houses and street corners in the suburbs. Another gentleman, a clergyman, states that he has so far made himself acquainted with the meanings of the signs employed, that by himself marking the characters (gammy) and (flummuxed) on the gate-posts of his parsonage, he enjoys a singular immunity from alms-seekers and cadgers on the tramp. This hint may not be lost on many other sufferers from importunate beggars, yet its publication may lead to the introduction of a new code.

From the cleft stick here alluded to, we learn the origin and use of , the third hieroglyph in the vagabond’s private list. And the extract also proves that the “rule of the road” is the same with tramps as with that body which is morally less but physically more dangerous, the London drivers.

A SHORT HISTORY OF SLANG,
OR
THE VULGAR LANGUAGE OF FAST LIFE.

Slang is the language of street humour, of fast, high, and low life. Cant, as was stated in the chapter upon that subject, is the vulgar language of secrecy. It must be admitted, however, that within the past few years they have become almost indivisible. They are both universal and ancient, and appear to have been, with certain exceptions, the offspring of gay, vulgar, or worthless persons in every part of the world at every period of time. Indeed, if we are to believe implicitly the saying of the wise man, that “there is nothing new under the sun,” the “bloods” of buried Nineveh, with their knotty and door-matty-looking beards, may have cracked Slang jokes on the steps of Sennacherib’s palace; while the stocks and stones of ancient Egypt, and the bricks of venerable and used-up Babylon, may be covered with Slang hieroglyphs, which, being perfectly unknown to modern antiquaries, have long been stumbling-blocks to the philologist; so impossible is it at this day to say what was then authorized, or what vulgar, language. The only objection that can be raised to this idea is, that Slang was, so far as can be discovered, traditional, and unwritten, until the appearance of this volume, a state of things which accounts for its many changes, and the doubtful orthography of even its best known and most permanent forms. Slang is almost as old as speech, and must date from the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding, and excitement, and artificial life. We have traces of this as far as we can refer back. Martial, the epigrammatist, is full of Slang. When an uninvited guest accompanied his friend, the Slang of the day styled him his “umbra;” when a man was trussed, neck and heels, it called him jocosely “quadrupus.” Slang is nowadays very often the only vehicle by which rodomontade may be avoided. It is often full of the most pungent satire, and is always to the point. Without point Slang has no raison d’être.

Old English Slang was coarser, and depended more upon downright vulgarity than our modern Slang. It was a jesting speech, or humorous indulgence for the thoughtless moment or the drunken hour, and it acted as a vent-peg for a fit of temper or irritability; but it did not interlard and permeate every description of conversation as now. It was confined to nicknames and improper subjects, and encroached but to a very small extent upon the domain of authorized speech. Indeed, it was exceedingly limited when compared with the vast territory of Slang in such general favour and complete circulation at the present day. Still, although not an extensive institution, as in our time, Slang certainly did exist in this country centuries ago, as we may see if we look down the page of any respectable History of England. Cromwell was familiarly called “Old Noll,”—in much the same way as Bonaparte was termed “Boney,” and Wellington “Conkey” or “Nosey,” only a few years ago.[32] His Legislature, too, was spoken of in a high-flavoured way as the “Barebones” or “Rump” Parliament, and his followers were nicknamed “Roundheads,” and the peculiar religious sects of his protectorate were styled “Puritans” and “Quakers.”[33] The Civil War pamphlets, and the satirical hits of the Cavaliers and the Commonwealth men, originated numerous Slang words and vulgar similes in full use at the present moment. Here is a field of inquiry for the Philological Society, indeed a territory, for there are thirty thousand of these partisan tracts. Later still, in the court of Charles II., the naughty ladies and the gay lords, with Rochester at their head, talked Slang; and very naughty Slang it was too. Fops in those days, when “over head and ears” in debt, and in continual fear of arrest, termed their enemies, the bailiffs, “Philistines”[34] or “Moabites.” At a later period, when collars were worn detached from shirts, in order to save the expense of washing—an object, it would seem, with needy “swells” in all ages—they obtained the name of “Jacobites.” One-half of the coarse wit in Butler’s Hudibras lurks in the vulgar words and phrases which he was so fond of employing. These Slang phrases contained the marrow of his arguments stripped of all superfluous matter, and they fell with ponderous weight and terrible effect upon his opponents. They were more homely and forcible than the mild and elegant sentences of Cowley, and the people, therefore, hurrahed them, and pronounced Butler one of themselves,—or, as we should say, in a joyful moment, “a jolly good fellow.” Orator Henley preached and prayed in Slang, and first charmed and then ruled the dirty mobs in Lincoln’s Inn Fields by vulgarisms. Burly Grose mentions Henley, with the remark that we owe a great many Slang phrases to him, though even the worst Slang was refinement itself compared with many of Henley’s most studied oratorical utterances, which proves that the most blackguard parts of a blackguard speech may be perfectly free from either Slang or Cant. Swift, and old Sir Roger L’Estrange, and Arbuthnot, were all fond of vulgar or Slang language; indeed, we may see from a Slang word used by the latter how curious is the gradual adoption of vulgar terms in our standard dictionaries. The worthy doctor, in order to annihilate (or, as we should say, with a fitting respect to the subject under consideration, to “smash”) an opponent, thought proper on an occasion to use the word “cabbage,” not in the ancient sense of a flatulent vegetable of the kitchen-garden, but in the at once Slang sense of purloining or cribbing. Johnson soon met with the word, looked at it, examined it, weighed it, and shook his head, but out of respect to a brother doctor inserted it in his dictionary, labelling it, however, prominently “Cant;” whilst Walker and Webster, years after, when all over England “to cabbage” was to pilfer, placed the term in their dictionaries as an ancient and very respectable word. Another Slang term, “gull,” to cheat, or delude, sometimes varied to “gully,” is stated to be connected with the Dean of St. Patrick’s. “Gull,” a dupe, or a fool, is often used by our old dramatists, and is generally believed to have given rise to the verb; but a curious little edition of Bamfylde Moore Carew, published in 1827, says that “to gull,” or “gully,” is derived from the well-known Gulliver, the hero of the famous Travels. It may be from the phrase, “You can’t come Gulliver over me,” in use while the popularity of the book was hot. How crammed with Slang are the dramatic works of the last century! The writers of the comedies and farces in those days must have lived in the streets, and written their plays in the public-houses, so filled are they with vulgarisms and unauthorized words. The popular phrases, “I owe you one,” “That’s one for his nob,” and “Keep moving, dad,” arose in this way.[35] The second of these sayings was, doubtless, taken from the card-table, for at cribbage the player who holds the knave of the suit turned up counts “one for his nob,” and the dealer who turns up a knave counts “two for his heels.” From a dramatic point of view, the use of these phrases is perfectly correct, as they were in constant use among the people supposed to be represented by the author’s characters.

In Mrs. Centlivre’s admirable comedy of A Bold Stroke for a Wife, we see the origin of that popular phrase, the real Simon Pure. Simon Pure is the Quaker name adopted by Colonel Feignwell as a trick to obtain the hand of Mistress Anne Lovely in marriage. The veritable Quaker, the “real Simon Pure,” recommended by Aminadab Holdfast, of Bristol, as a fit sojourner with Obadiah Prim, arrives at last, to the discomfiture of the Colonel, who, to maintain his position and gain time, concocts a letter in which the real Quaker is spoken of as a housebreaker who had travelled in the “leather conveniency” from Bristol, and adopted the garb and name of the western Quaker in order to pass off as the “Real Simon Pure,” but only for the purpose of robbing the house and cutting the throat of the perplexed Obadiah. The scene in which the two Simon Pures, the real and the counterfeit, meet, is one of the best in the comedy.

Tom Brown, of “facetious memory,” as his friends were wont to say, and Ned Ward, who wrote humorous books, and when tired drew beer for his customers at his alehouse in Long Acre,[36] were both great producers of Slang in the last century, and to them we owe many popular current phrases and household words.

Written Slang was checked, rather than advanced, by the pens of Addison, Johnson, and Goldsmith; although Bee, the bottle-holder and historiographer of the pugilistic band of brothers in the youthful days of flat-nosed Tom Cribb, has gravely stated that Johnson, when young and rakish, contributed to an early volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine a few pages, by way of specimen, of a slang dictionary, the result, Mr. Bee says, “of his midnight ramblings!”[37] This statement is not only improbable, but an investigation of the venerable magazine, though strict and searching, produces no evidence in corroboration of Mr. Bee. Goldsmith, even, certainly coined a few words as occasion required, although as a rule his pen was pure and graceful, and adverse to neologisms. The word “fudge,” it has been stated, was first used by him in literary composition, although it probably originated with one Captain Fudge, a notorious fibber, nearly a century before. Street phrases, nicknames, and vulgar words were continually being added to the great stock of popular Slang up to the commencement of the present century, when it received numerous additions from pugilism, horse-racing, and “fast” life generally, which suddenly came into great public favour, and was at its height in the latter part of the reign of George III., and in the early days of the Regency. Slang in those days was generally termed “flash” language. It will thus be noted that the term “flash” has in turn represented both Cant and Slang; now the word Slang has become perfectly generic. So popular was “flash” with the “bloods” of high life, that it constituted the best paying literary capital for certain authors and dramatists. Pierce Egan issued Boxiana, and Life in London, six portly octavo volumes, crammed with Slang; and Moncrieff wrote the most popular farce of the day, Tom and Jerry (adapted from the latter work), which, to use newspaper Slang, “took the town by storm,” and, with its then fashionable vulgarisms, made the fortune of the old Adelphi Theatre, and was without exception the most wonderful instance of a continuous theatrical run in ancient or modern times. This also was brimful of Slang. Other authors helped to popularize and extend Slang down to our own time, and it has now taken a somewhat different turn, dropping many of the Cant and old vulgar words, and assuming a certain quaint and fashionable phraseology—familiar, utilitarian, and jovial. There can be no doubt that common speech is greatly influenced by fashion, fresh manners, and that general change of ideas which steals over a people once in a generation. But before proceeding further into the region of Slang, it will be well to say something on the etymology of the word.

The word Slang is only mentioned by two lexicographers—Webster and Ogilvie.[38] Johnson, Walker, and the older compilers of dictionaries give “slang” as the preterite of “sling,” but not a word about Slang in the sense of low, vulgar, or unrecognised language. The origin of the word has often been asked for in literary journals and books, but only one man, until recently, ever hazarded an etymology—Jonathan Bee.[39] With a recklessness peculiar to ignorance, Bee stated that Slang was derived from “the slangs or fetters worn by prisoners, having acquired that name from the manner in which they were worn, as they required a sling of string to keep them off the ground.” Bee had just been nettled at Pierce Egan’s producing a new edition of Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, and was determined to excel in a vulgar dictionary of his own, which should be more racy, more pugilistic, and more original. How far he succeeded in this latter particular, his ridiculous etymology of Slang will show. Slang is not an English word; it is the Gipsy term for their secret language, and its synonym is Gibberish—another word which was believed to have had no distinct origin.[40] Grose—stout and burly Captain Grose—whom we may characterize as the greatest antiquary, joker, and porter-drinker of his day, was the first lexicographer to recognise the word “Slang.” It occurs in his Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, of 1785, with the statement that it implies “Cant or vulgar language.” Grose was a great favourite with Burns, and so pleased him by his extensive powers of story-telling and grog-imbibing, that the companionable and humour-loving Scotch bard wrote for his fat friend—or, to use his own words, “the fine, fat, fodgel wight”—the immortal poem of Tam O’ Shanter.

It is not worth while troubling the reader with a long account of the transformation into an English term of the word Slang, as it is easily seen how we obtained it. Hucksters and beggars on tramp, or at fairs and races, associate and frequently join in any rough enterprise with the Gipsies. The word would be continually heard by them, and would in this manner soon become part of their vocabulary,[41] and, when carried by “fast” or vulgar fashionables from the society of thieves and low characters to their own drawing-rooms, would as quickly become Slang, and the representative term for all vulgar language. Modern philologists give the word Slang as derived from the French langue. This is, at all events, as likely as any other derivative.

Any sudden excitement or peculiar circumstance is quite sufficient to originate and set going a score of Slang words. Nearly every election or public agitation throws out offshoots of excitement, or scintillations of humour in the shape of Slang terms—vulgar at first, but at length adopted, if possessing sufficient hold on the public mind, as semi-respectable from sheer force of habit. There is scarcely a condition or calling in life that does not possess its own peculiar Slang. The professions, legal and medical, have each familiar and unauthorized terms for peculiar circumstances and things, and it is quite certain that the clerical calling, or “the cloth”—in itself a Slang term given at a time when the laity were more distinguished by their gay dress from the clergy than they are now—is not entirely free from this peculiarity. Every workshop, warehouse, factory, and mill throughout the country has its Slang, and so have the public schools and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Sea Slang constitutes the principal charm of a sailor’s “yarn;” and our soldiers have in turn their peculiar nicknames and terms for things and subjects, proper and improper. A writer in Household Words (No. 183) has gone so far as to remark, that a person “shall not read one single parliamentary debate, as reported in a first-class newspaper, without meeting scores of Slang words,” and “that from Mr. Speaker in his chair, to the Cabinet Ministers whispering behind it—from mover to seconder, from true blue Protectionist to extremest Radical—Mr. Barry’s New House echoes and re-echoes with Slang.” This statement is most worthy of notice, as showing how, with a very small sub-stratum of fact, a plausible, though not the less gigantic, mis-statement may be built up.

The universality of Slang is extraordinary. Let any person for a short time narrowly examine the conversation of his dearest and nearest friends, or even analyse his own supposed correct talk, and he shall be amazed at the numerous unauthorized, and what we can only call vulgar, words in constant use. One peculiarity of the growth of Slang is the finding of new meanings for old words. Take, for instance, the verbs “do,” “cut,” “go,” and “take,” and see how they are used to express fresh ideas, and then let us ask ourselves how is it possible for a Frenchman or German, be he never so well educated, to avoid continually blundering and floundering amongst our little words when trying to make himself understood in an ordinary conversation? He may have studied our language the required time, and have gone through the usual amount of “grinding,” and practised the common allotment of patience, but all to no purpose as far as accuracy is concerned. As, however, we do not make our language, nor for the matter of that our Slang, for the convenience or inconvenience of foreigners, we need not pursue this portion of the subject further. “Jabber” and “hoax” were Slang and Cant terms in Swift’s time; so, indeed, were “mob” and “sham.”[42] Words directly from the Latin and Greek, framed in accordance with the rules which govern the construction of the language, are not Slang, but are good English, if not Saxon,—a term, by the way, which is as much misused as any unfortunate word that can be remembered just now. Sound contributes many Slang words—a source that etymologists frequently overlook. Nothing pleases an ignorant person so much as a high-sounding term, “full of fury.” How melodious and drum-like are those vulgar coruscations “rumbumptious,” “slantingdicular,” “splendiferous,” “rumbustious,” and “ferricadouzer.” What a “pull” the sharp-nosed lodging-house-keeper thinks she has over her victims if she can but hurl such testimonies of a liberal education at them when they are disputing her charges, and threatening to “absquatulate!” In the United States the vulgar-genteel even excel the poor “stuck-up” Cockneys in their formation of a native fashionable language. How charming to a refined ear are “abskize,” “catawampously,” “exflunctify,” “obscute,” “keslosh,” “kesouse,” “keswollop,” and “kewhollux!”[43] It must not be forgotten, however, that a great many new “Americanisms” are perfectly unknown in America, and in this respect they resemble the manners and customs of our cousins as found in books, and in books only. Vulgar words representing action and brisk movement often owe their origin to sound, as has before been remarked. Mispronunciation, too, is another great source of vulgar or Slang words, and of this “ramshackle,” “shackly,” “nary-one” for neither or neither one, “ottomy” or “atomy” for anatomy, “rench” for rinse, are specimens. The commonalty dislike frequently-occurring words difficult of pronunciation, and so we have the street abridgments of “bimeby” for by-and-by, “caze” for because, “gin” for given, “hankercher” for handkerchief, “ruma tiz” for rheumatism, “backer” for tobacco, and many others, not perhaps Slang, but certainly, all vulgarisms. Whately, in his Remains of Bishop Copleston, has inserted a leaf from the bishop’s note-book on the popular corruption of names, mentioning, among others, “kickshaws,” as from the French quelques choses; “beefeater,” the grotesque guardian of royalty in a procession, and the envied devourer of enormous beefsteaks, as but a vulgar pronunciation of the French buffetier, and “George and Cannon,” the sign of a public-house, as nothing but a corruption (although so soon!) of the popular premier of the last generation, George Canning.[44] Literature has its Slang terms; and the desire on the part of writers to say funny and startling things in a novel and curious way contributes many unauthorized words to the great stock of Slang.