SOME ACCOUNT OF THE

RHYMING SLANG,

THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF

CHAUNTERS AND PATTERERS.

THERE exists in London a singular tribe of men, known amongst the "fraternity of vagabonds as Chaunters and Patterers. Both classes are great talkers. The first sing or chaunt through the public thoroughfares ballads—political and humourous carols, dying speeches, and the various other kinds of gallows and street literature. The second deliver street orations on greaseremoving compounds, plating powders, high polishing blacking, and the thousand and one wonderful pennyworths that are retailed to gaping mobs from a London curb stone.

They are quite a distinct tribe from the costermongers; indeed, amongst tramps, they term them

selves the "harristocrats of the streets," and boast that they live by their intellects. Like the costermongers, however, they have a secret tongue or cant speech, known only to each other. This cant, which has nothing to do with that spoken by the costermongers, is known in Seven Dials and elsewhere as the RHYMING SLANG, or the substitution of words and sentences which rhyme with other words intended to be kept secret. The chaunter's cant, therefore, partakes of his calling, and he transforms and uses up into a rough speech the various odds and ends of old songs, ballads, and street nick-names, which are found suitable to his purpose. Unlike nearly all other systems of cant the rhyming slang is not founded upon allegory; unless we except a few rude similes, thus,-I'M AFLOAT is the rhyming cant for boat, ARTFUL DODGER signifies a lodger, and a SNAKE IN THE GRASS stands for a looking-glass,—a meaning that would delight a fat CHINAMAN, or a collector of Oriental proverbs. But, as in the case of the costers' speech and the old gipsey-vagabond cant, the chaunters and patterers so interlard this rhyming slang "with their general remarks, while their ordinary language is so smothered and sub

SPOKEN PRINCIPALLY BY VAGABOND POETS. 135

dued, that unless when they are professionally engaged and talking of their wares they might almost pass for foreigners."

From the enquiries I have made of various patterers and "paper workers," I learn that the rhyming slang was introduced about twelve or fifteen years ago. Numbering this class of oratorical and bawling wanderers at twenty thousand, scattered over Great Britain, including London. and the large provincial towns, we thus see the number of English vagabonds who converse in rhyme and talk poetry,-although their habitations and mode of life constitute a very unpleasant Arcadia. These nomadic poets, like the other talkers of cant or secret languages, are stamped with the vagabond's mark, and are continually on the move. The married men mostly have lodgings in London, and come and go as occasion may require. A few never quit London streets, but the greater number tramp to all the large provincial fairs, and prefer the MONKERY (country) to town life. Some transact their business in a systematic way, sending a post office order to the Seven Dials printer, for a fresh supply of ballads or penny books, or to the SWAG SHOP, as the case may be,

for trinkets and gewgaws, to be sent on by rail to a given town by the time they shall arrive there.

When any dreadful murder, colliery explosion, or frightful railroad accident has happened in a country district, three or four chaunters are generally on the spot in a day or two after the occurrence, vending and bawling "A True and Faithful Account," &c., which "true and faithful account" was concocted purely by the imaginations of the successors of Catnach and Tommy Pitts*, in the printing shops of Seven Dials. And but few fairs are held in any part of England without the patterer being punctually at his post, with his nostrums, or real gold rings (with the story of the wager laid by the gentleman-see FAWNEY BOUNCING, in the Dictionary), or save-alls for candlesticks, or paste which, when applied to the strop, makes the dullest razor keen enough to hack broom handles and sticks, and after that to have quite enough sharpness left for splitting hairs, or shaving them off the back of one of the clod-hoppers' hands, looking on in amazement. And CHEAP JOHN, too, with his coarse jokes, and no end of six-bladed

*The famous printers and publishers of sheet songs and last dying speeches thirty years ago.