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.

*

In a popular constable's guide,* giving the practice of justices in petty sessions, the following interesting paragraph is found, corroborating what has just been said on the hieroglyphs used by vagabonds:

"Gipsies follow their brethren by numerous marks, such as strewing handfuls of grass in the daytime at a four lane or cross roads; the grass being strewn down the road the gang have taken; also, by a cross being made on the ground with a stick or knife-the longest end of the cross denotes the route taken. In the night-time a cleft stick is placed in the fence at the cross roads, with an arm pointing down the road their comrades have taken. The marks are always placed on the left-hand side, so that the stragglers can easily and readily find them."

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.

* Snowden's Magistrate's Assistant, 1852, p. 444.

A SHORT HISTORY OF SLANG,

OR

THE VULGAR LANGUAGE OF FAST LIFE.

SL

LANG 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.* His Legislature, too, was spoken of in a highflavoured 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." The Civil War pamphlets, and the

An outgrowth of this latter peculiarity consisted in any one with a high or prominent nose being, a few years back, called by the street boys "Duke."

+ This term, with a singular literal downrightness, which would be remarkable in any other people than the French, is translated by them as the sect of Trembieurs.

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" or "Moabites." "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

* Swift alludes to this term in his Art of Polite Conversation, p. 14, 1738.

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, "gulf," 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. 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.

* See Notes and Queries, vol. i. p. 185. 1850.