"" 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," a napkin; a "GRUNTING CHETE," a pig, &c., &c. CHEAT now a-days means to defraud or swindle, and lexicographers have tortured etymology for an original-but without success. Escheats and escheatours have been named, but with great doubts; indeed, Steevens, the learned commentator of Shakespere, acknowledged that he "did not recollect to have met with the word cheat in our ancient writers." CHEAT to defraud, then, is no other than an old cant term, somewhat altered in its meaning, 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,-remembering a certain class of low characters, a curious * Shakes. Hen. IV., part 2, act ii, scene 4. It is easy to see how cheat became synonymous with fraud, when we remember that it was one of the most common words of the greatest class of cheats in the country. connexion between the two meanings will be discovered. "MAKE" was a halfpenny, we now say MAG, MAKE being modern cant for to rob. "MILLING" stood for stealing, it is now a pugilistic term for fighting or beating. "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. PRYGGES, dronken Tinkers or beastly people," as old Harman wrote, would scarcely be understood now; a PRIG, in the XIXth century, is a pickpocket or thief. "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 indebted for the word, which etymologists should remember. "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,-a "RUMMY old fellow," 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 Glossary. Several words are entirely obsolete. "ALYBBEG" no longer means a bed, nor ASKEW a cup. 'BOOGET," now-a-days, would not be understood for a basket, although we have the word bucket; neither would "GAN" pass current for mouth. FULLAMS was the old cant term for false or loaded dice, and although used by Shakespere in this sense, is now unknown and obsolete. Indeed, as Tom Moore somewhere remarks, the present Greeks of St. Giles, 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.* But I think I 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 Thos. Harman, * Which, literally translated, means: Go out, good girls, and look and see, For all your clothes are carried away, 66 xxiii a gentleman who lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Some writers have remarked that Deckar* was the first to compile a Dictionary of the vagabonds' tongue; whilst Borrow,‡ and Moore, the poet, have 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 reader will quickly detect many vulgar street words, old acquaintances, dressed in antique garb.§ 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, maried wemen as chaste as a cowe. * Who wrote about the year 1640. Gipsies of Spain, vol. 1, p. 18. Borrow further commits himself by remarking that "Head's Vocabulary has always been accepted as the speech of the English Gipsies." Nothing of the kind. Head professed to have lived with the Gipsies, but in reality filched his words from Decker and Brome. § The modern meanings of a few of the old cant words are given in brackets. 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 [Beek], 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. BOWSE, drink. BOWSING-KEN, a alehouse. BUFE [buffer, a man], a dogge. BYNGE A WASTE, go you hence. CACKLING-CHETE, a coke [cock], or capon. CASSAN [cassam], cheese. CASTERS, a cloake. CATETH, "the vpright Cofe cateth to the Roge" [probably a shortening or misprint for 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 sicknes. CRANKE [cranky, foolish], falling evil [or wasting sickness]. CUFFEN, a manne [man]. DARKEMANS, the night. |