Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
Henry Mayhew's 19th Century London
Spoken Language that Influenced Charles Dickens
Dictionary, including Flash (19th Century slang)

Lambeth Workhouse

"Flash" was the slang used by the underworld, employed by Charles Dickens in such works as "Oliver Twist". However, use of underworld slang has been recorded in England as early as 1585.¹ Click here to find out more .

It is also to be noted that Miguel de Cervantes used the slang of the gente del hampa (underworld) that existed in the Iberian peninsula (especially in Seville) called germanía², in such stories as "Rinconete y Cortadillo" (Novelas Ejemplares, 1613). "Rinconete y Cortadillo" is a story about a gang of child cut-purses, and prostitutes who also steal lace handkerchiefs. The Iberian peninsula included other kinds of characters such as gitanos (gypsies), Jews, Moors, eunuchs, slaves (white and black), Conversos, Moriscos, etc. These were depicted by Cervantes in other stories, such as "El Celoso Extremeño". (According to historian Charles Verlinden, white slaves — Tatars, Russians and Caucasians — were transported to Iberia on galleys from the Black Sea or the Balkans by Genoese and Venetian traders before the second fall of Constantinople in 1453. See "The Beginnings of Modern Colonization", Yvonne Freccero, Trans., Cornell University Press, 1970, p. 29.) For examples of Germanía, click here.

The Russian underworld of the nineteenth century also had its own slang, sometimes referred to as "fenya" or "blatnoy yashik" (<<блатной язык>>), the language of criminals and thieves. Examples of fenya were found in nineteenth century Russian newspapers, as short fictional stories began to be written about mid-level people and peasants, rather than high-level officials, receptions and balls. See Vladimir Dal', "The Petersburg Yardkeeper". ³

Click links to browse Flash:
       A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M  

       N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z  

       Watercress Girl   References

A
• "Abbess": Madam of a house of prostitution (stewardess of the stews).
• "Abbot": A pimp, guard for the prostitutes.
• "Abraham": A cheap (second-hand) clothier's shop (ie: Jew).
• "Academy": A gang of thieves, a prison (hulks), buzzing (pickpocket) academy, a brothel or "pushing school".
• "Adept": Pickpocket.
• "After David" or "Davy": (affadavit), "bob swore": Bob swore ("David Copperfield"), for those who were ignorant of the French "bon soir". Similarly, see "Judy" ("David Copperfield"), instead of "jury", and "lulu" in place of the French word "lieu" (often used by lawyers ignorant of French), and "travail" same spelling as the French word, but mispronounced in English. Many other examples of erroneous translations exist: such as "fox's paw" in lieu of "faux pas"; "ha' p' worth coperas" in lieu of "habeas corpus"; "nine shillings" in lieu of "non chalance"; "cobblers-marbles" in lieu of "cholera morbus".
• "Aggravators" or "Aggerawators" or "Haggerawators" or "Figure 6" or: A "aggravator" or "aggerawator" is a slang term for a man's lock of hair brought down from the forehead, well greased, and twisted in a spiral on the temple either in the direction of the ear or the eye. A variety of "Lovelock", for men. (See "A Dictionary of Slang and its Analogues, Past and Present", by John S. Farmer and W. E. Henley, London, 1890.)
• "Airy" or "Airy bell": An "area" is a small court, several steps below street level, opening by door into a room of a dwelling (thus "area-gate", "area-door", "area-railing", "area-steps", etc.). An "airy bell" was a bell used that signals at the area room.
• "Ait": An islet, especially in a river.
• "Akerman's hotel": This expression signifies Newgate prison. In 1787, a person named Akerman was the gaoler of Newgate prison.
• "Allounced": Allounce means a limited portion of food (in payment), thus a limited allowance means payed an insufficient amount of food. "Allow for keep" is related means that money is used instead of food (if the person eats too much).
• "Alls": The five alls was a sign found in the country with five figures of people upon it:
  1. King: "I govern all"
  2. Bishop: "I pray for all"
  3. Lawyer: "I plead for all"
  4. Soldier: "I fight for all"
  5. Poor countryman with scythe: "I pay for all"
• "Ambidexter": An "ambidexter" is a lawyer who takes fees from both plaintiff and defendant.
• "Anabaptist": When a pickpocket is caught "red handed", if the pickpocket is punished by being ducked in a nearby horse-pond, the punished thief is referred to as an "anabaptist".
• "Angler": Petty thieves that use a stick with a hook at the end to pilfer goods from shop windows are called "anglers".
• "Ankle-jacks": A boot reaching just above the ankles.
• "Apostles": Poor people who borrow money to pay debts are said to "rob Peter to pay Paul" (the apostles).
• "Apothecary": Apothecaries, druggists, chemists commonly used bottles that were color coded. Thus in "Oliver Twist", by Charles Dickens, Penguin Press, 2002, ISBN-13: 978-0-141-43974-7, P. 218, note #2 (explanation on p. 511): green-glass bottles used by apothecaries, druggists, and chemists signified peppermint (perhaps mixed with gin). Hence a color-coding existed.
• "Apothecary Latin": This expression signifies poor Latin often used to inflate the user. Examples: "agua pumpaginis" meaning "pump water"; "trickum legis" meaning a "legal technicality"; "ominum gatherum" meaning "everyone gathers".
• "Articles (of indenture)": The contract by which an apprentice is bound by law.
• "Autem": The term "autem" refers to a church, and may be used in different ways:
  1. "Autem divers": pickpockets that practice in churches (this includes "theft" by church wardens" and overseers of the poor).
  2. "Autem morts": female beggars married in a church, that use hired children to excite charity. Note: see "respectable family man lurk".
  3. "Autem bawler": a preacher or parson.

Top
B
• "Baby's Head": A steak and kidney pudding that is made with diced steak and beef, lambs or pigs kidney in gravy with onions, covered with a suet pastry. It is then steamed for many hours until cooked.
• "Babylonian": Very big, as in a "Babylonian collar".
• "Band-box": A box to hold ruffs (fancy collars), later to hold caps and hats.
• "Bandoline": A gummy substance made from boiled quince seeds, used as a hair dressing.
• "Barker": A pistol.
• "Barring-out": Shutting the door against a schoolmaster so the schoolmaster can't enter the classroom.
• "Basil": Dressed sheepskin covering used for warmth, such as a quilt.
• "Basket button": A metal button with a basket pattern.
• "Bathing-machine": A shed on wheels drawn by a horse, used to change into bathing attire, allowing close appraoch to the water (to conceal out of modesty).
• "Batter": Beg.
• "Beak": Constable.
• "Beau trap": A loose cobble stone, under which water lodges, and on being trod upon, squirts the water up to foul the clothes of a nearby pedestrian. A "beau trap" refers to a sharply dressed criminal who lies in wait to take advantage of an inexperienced bumpkin or fop.
• "Beck": A term used to refer to a parish beadle.
• "Belly plea": A capitally convicted female felon falsely pleas pregnancy to procure a delay in the sentence being carried out.
• "Billy": A "billy" is a term used by pickpockets that specialize in the theft of handkerchiefs.
  1. Belcher (dark blue with round white spots or cross-striped: after the well-known pugilist "Jem Belcher": 1781-1811)
  2. Bird's-eye wipe (any color with white spots)
  3. Blood-Red Fancy
  4. Blue Billy (with white figures)
  5. Cream Fancy (any pattern on white)
  6. Green King's Man (green with any pattern)
  7. King's Man (green with a yellow pattern)
  8. Randal's Man (green with white spots)
  9. Yellow Man (all yellow)
  10. Yellow Fancy (with white spots)
  11. Watersman (sky-blue)
• "Billy-fencer": The owner of a marine-store.
• "Billysweet": A new kind of mortar for building houses was given the name of "billysweet". This mortar was profitable as it was based upon a lime substance derived from the products of soap-making. However, billysweet seemed never to dry out. The result is that buildings constructed with billysweet were unstable, as the walls made of this material sagged. Buildings constructed with billysweet, with floors constructed with bricks made by mixing in coal ash (see "brieze") resulted in buildings that seemed forever to be "damp". These building techniques were compounded by roofs of such pitch that damp from above seeped in through rotting rafters. Such buildings were themselves conducive of diseases such as consumption, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc.
        Discussing the construction of workers' cottages in the Manchester area (considered typical of workers' housing) it is pointed out that these cottages were built as cheaply as possible, as they were not expected to last more than a few decades. Thus, at first one layer of bricks were used in the walls as in Case 1 below, but later one layer of bricks was used as in Case 2 below, as this was even cheaper.
        "The Condition of the Working Class in England", by Fredrich Engels, 2005, p.96.
  
• "Birdlime": A sticky glue used to catch birds (anchored to a branch with this glue spread upon it). Thus it is sometimes said that a person can be limed trapped).
• "Blackguard": A loafer, ruffian, barbarian, criminal, etc.
• "Black Indies": Newcastle (coal mining country).
• "Black-leg": The term 'black-leg' was used to designate a strike-breaker (scab), but was limited to Irish strike-breakers. The terms "knobstick" and "black-nob" also designated a strike-breaker.
• "Black Monday": The poor often had to queue up to "pop" belongings in a Dolly-shop (pawn shop) to obtain money to pay rent. Rent had to be paid on Mondays, hence Mondays were referred to as "Black Mondays". If rent was owed, bailiffs could destrain or seize goods in lieu of rent.
• "Blimey": Originally an exclamation meaning "May God blind me if it isn't so".
• "Bloater": A smoked and dried herring.
• "Blow upon": To inform upon or betray.
• "Blowen": Mistress.
• "Bluchers": Boots (after Field Marshal von Blücher), laced up in front.
• "Bluecoat school" or "Free-school": Charity schools (where the students wore a blue coat).
• "Blue-hunter": Those thieves that specialize in stealing lead from the tops of houses. Also called a "blue pigeon flyer".
• "Blue-ruin" or "Short" or "Tape" or "Max" or "Duke" or "Gatter" or "Jackey": Terms commonly used for gin.
• "Blunt": Money.
• "Boardman": A person who wears boards with signs upon them, to advertise something.
• "Bob": A shop-lifter's accomplice (usually carries the stolen goods).
• "Bob swore": Bob swore ("David Copperfield"), for those who were ignorant of the French "bon soir". Similarly, see "after David" (affadavit) and "Judy" ("David Copperfield"), instead of "jury", and "lulu" in place of the French word "lieu" (often used by lawyers ignorant of French), and "travail" same spelling as the French word, but mispronounced in English.
• "Boggy": A young thief.
• "Bombazeen" or "Bombasine": A twilled cloth made or worsted with silk or cotton.
• "Bone-Grubber or bone-picker": Bone-grubbers or bone-pickers collected bits of bone, sold to bone grinders, who ground them up to obtain cellulose.
• "Booby": A dull, stupid person.
• "Booty" or "To play booty": Cheating (for examply at cards) where the player purposely avoids winning.
• "Box the Jesuit": Sailor's expression that signifies masturbation.
• "Bow Street Runners": The "Bow Street Runners" was one of the earliest forms of a police force in London. Employed by the Bow Street Magistrate's court, 1748-1829.
• "Bow-wow shop": A shop that sells second hand clothes (barkers do lots of "barking").
• "Brieze": Burned coal resulted in "soil" (fine dust or ash) and "brieze" (coarse cinders). An entire industry was centered upon coal (mostly from Newcastle). The ashes were collected and driven in wagons to collection points. At these collection points, the dust formed conical mountains. These mountains were located near rivers in London to ease transport. These ashes were sifted for valuables such as tin, iron, rags and bones. The "soil" was transported to brick yards and mixed with clay and bricks were made. The houses in London were constructed from Newcastle coal.
  1. Coalmeters: weigh coal on ships
  2. Coalporters (or coalbackers): fill coal wagons
  3. Coalwhippers: draw up baskets of coal from the depths of colliers
  4. Ballast-heavers: heave ballast into ship holds
  5. Lumper: load and unload ships (not restricted to ballast)
• "Brogues": Rude shoes made of untanned leather.
• "Broken victuals": Leftover or damaged food, such as small pieces of meat from a butcher shop, or bruised vegetables or fruit left-over at the end of the day, were used as food by the poor.
• "Brummagem": Literally, Middle English slang for "Birmingham". At one time, tools made in Birmingham were of inferior quality. Thus "Brummagem" referred to anything cheap, gaudy, tacky, or of low quality. Mayhew's prostitutes said that when they worked as prostitutes among soldiers, they were "cutting Brummagem" (the lowest grade of prostitution).
• "Buffer-lass": A girl who shined or buffed cutlery.
• "Bulk and file": This expression refers to a pickpocket team. The "bulk" distracts the intended victim, while the "file" then robs the distracted victim.
• "Bullseye": The light thrown by the lens of a lantern, or the entire lantern; often in reference to the lantern carried by a police officer. (See "glim")
• "Bunter":
  1. Rag-picker for slop-shops
  2. Female thief
  3. Cheap prostitute
  4. One who takes lodgings, but diappears without paying the bill.
• "Busk": Selling obscene songs in a pub, sometimes performing as well.
• "Buzz": Pickpocket. Also called a "diver", "foyst", and "prig". There were categories of "buzzers:
  1. "moll hook": female pickpocket
  2. "moll buzzer": a pickpocket that specializes in picking pockets of women
• "Buzz-napper's academy": A school to teach children to be pickpockets.
        It would be an error to assume that only Fagins (Jews) were so corrupt as to create and run such schools for pickpockets. Poor people with no other resources, though they may be Irish, Jewish, or otherwise, will do whatever they have to do to survive. It is interesting that "Marxists" classify "lumpen proletariat" as a class of criminals, while in fact they are no more than poor people, often driven to act in unlawful ways. It is not clear that "capitalist bourgeoise", when they destroy people, are any less a criminal class. In any case, "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens does depict such a "buzz-napper's academy". Thus, Charles Dickens was simply an observer of harsh reality. Another, independent observation of such academies, sans "Fagin", may be found in "The Vulgar Tongue: Buckish Slang and Pickpocket Eloquence" by Francis Gross, Summersdale Publishers Ltd., 2004 ISBN: 1 84024 413 5, p. 205:
  
  In the year 1585, a "Wotton" kept an academy for the education and perfection of pickpockets and cut-purses. "This man [Wotton] was a gentleman born, and sometimes a merchant of good credit, but fallen by time into decay: he kept an alehouse near Smart's Key, near Billingsgate, afterwards for some misdemeanor put down. He reared up a new trade of life, and in the same house he procured all the cut-purses about the city, to repair to his house; there was a school-house set up to learn young boys to cut purses: two devices were hung up; one was a pocket, and another was a purse; the pocket had in it certain counters, and was hung about with hawks' bells, & over the top did hang a little sacring bell. The purse had silver in it; and he that could take out a counter, without noise of any of the bells, was adjudged a judicial nypper; according to their terms of art."

Top
C
• "Cab-driver": These men drive omnibuses and carriages. They may be grouped into the following four classes:
  1. "Long-day men": A long-day man is a driver who drives his cab between 9 and 10 am and returns betweens 4 and 8 am the following day. The long-day men often employ unlicensed drivers called "bucks".
  2. "Morning-men": A morning man leaves at 7 am and returns at 6 pm the same day.
  3. "Long-night men": A long-night man goes out at 6 pm and returns at 10 am the following morning.
  4. "Short-night men": A short-night man works between 6 pm and 6 am the next morning.
  5. "Bucks": The bucks are unlicensed (due to bad conduct), and cover for the regular drivers while the regular drivers are at meals. The bucks must "rub up" (polish the brass of the cabs using a "dish-clout") while waiting for a temporary position, often spending their time in pubs. Most bucks are thieves, and intimidate their customers; and if their customers are in a drunken stupor, they will pickpocket them.
• "Cadger": Beggar.
• "Cag-Magger": Gossip.
• "Campbell's academy": This expression refers to hulks (old ships used as prisons). The first director of hulk prisons was a Mr. Campbell. Another term used with the same meaning is a "floating academy".
• "Carneying": To wheedle or coax.
• "Castor": A man's hat.
• "Casual labourers": Part-time day labouers (insecure employment).
• "Cat and kittens": A thief that specializes in stealing pewter pots (quarts and pints) from pubs.
• "Character":
  1. A servant's recommendation
  2. A "brand" placed on a criminal's hand
• "Chartist": The Chartist movement was a movement that to some degree attempted real political and social change. Many of the Chartists were oriented towards revolutionary violence, while some Chartists were more idealistic and sought democratic change (through ballotting and parliamentary procedure). Factory workers (operators) worked long hours for low pay (which Richard Ostler referred to as "Yorkshire slavery") in an extremely dangerous workplace environment (accidents were quite common). Simultaneously, coal miners worked 12-, 24- and even 36-hour shifts. The coal-mining environment was also very dangerous due to shaft collapses and gas explosions. Both in the cloth manufacturing environment and in the mines, occupational diseases were common due to fiber particulate matter in the factories and coal dust in the mines. In both industries children and women and were employed, as a consequence their growth was stunted and their bones were bent, giving rise to a well-known crippled appearance. As capitalism at this time was almost totally unregulated (free trade and laissez-faire), there could be no amelioration of the working conditions. In some cases unions were formed and the response of the industrialists was to use the local government to oppose the unions and Chartists. These were not minor disturbances, as the Army was invoked, and even artillery was used!
  
  There were two primary interested ruling groups to be served which were to some degree opposed to each other. On one hand were the landed aristocracy which now included West Indian sugar plantation owners (owners of slaves). These landed interests wished to maintain the "Corn Laws" which limited free trade so as to maintain high prices of raw agricultural products. On the other hand, the cloth manufacturers basically opposed the Corn Laws as they were trying to minimize costs and thus wanted the food that the factory workers paid for to be as cheap as possible (so that pay to factory workers could be as small as possible). The reaction to the struggle between these two power groups was that the workers wanted to reduce their long work hours, and this led to the "Ten-Hour-a-Day" protests, a way to divert the more actively revolutionary views of the Chartists and the mining unions and general strikes that were beginning to take place with increasing frequency. The "Ten-Hour-a-Day" supporters were mostly idealistic sentimentalists and socialists of the type of Robert Owen, a cloth manufacturer with a factory in New Lenark. These socialists were utopians bent on a view that would not challenge the political organization of society. The result was the "Ten Hour Bill", which basically didn't change things very much from the viewpoint of the workers as there was really no serious attempt to enforce any improvements. In addition, the Tommy Shops still existed (weakly dealt with under the Truck Act) and the Cottage System still existed, and was used in an attempt to break the general strike of the radicalized coal workers in 1844.
• "Chariot-buzzing": Picking pockets on an omnibus.
• "Charlie": Night watchman.
• "Cheeks the Marine": Tommy Adkins, Tom Tyler (Mr. Nobody or our John Doe).
• "Chequer-brat": A worker's weekday clothes: corduroy or fustian (coarse cotton or linen, or a blend of the two) pants, with a chequer-brat (a kind of shirt that covers deficiencies in underclothes). Workers were often called Fustian jackets as opposed to the wealthy, who wore "broadcloth" (broadcloth is made of wool or worsted wool) and "nankeens".
• "Chi-ike": Street salute of praise (to give a chi-ike).
• "Chiving-lay": By Cutting the braces of coaches from behind, the coachman must then quit the box, giving an accomplice an opportunity to break and rob the boot.
• "Choused": Swindled, defrauded.
• "Chovey": Shop or store. see "Swag-Chovey bloke"
• "Chummy": A chimney-sweep's climbing boy. Young boys that could fit into chimneys were required, thus this sometimes resulted in the theft of young boys.
• "Cinder-garbler": A "slavey".
• "Clank" and "Clank napper": A "clank" refers to a silver tankard. A "clank napper" is one who steals clanks for a living. The reader might call to mind the etymology of the expression "kid napper".
• "Claw": A lash by the cat (cat-o-nine tails).
• "Clean": A very good pickpocket.
• "Clergyman": A chimney-sweep (because he was all black, like the dress of a clergyman).
• "Cleyme": An artificial sore made by a beggar to himself, to excite charity.
• "Click": Refers to burglery, or housebreaking, as the sound of a lock being "clicked"
• "Climbing-boys": Small children that could easily fit into chimneys to sweep them clean, were called "climbing-boys".
• "Coaley": A coal-heaver (porter).
• "Cobblers-marbles": Cholera morbus.
• "Coffee-biggin": A coffee pot with a strainer to keep the coffee grounds (invented by Biggin).
• "Coiner": A maker of base or counterfeit coins; a counterfeiter.
• "Come Yorkshire": To cheat someone.
• "Conkey": To have a very long nose; used in the sense of "a nosy person".
• "Cornopean or Cornet-à-piston": Cornet with "valves" (hence the 'piston').
• "Costermonger": Sellers of fruit in "shallows" or baskets, (coster means apple), taties or murphies, lucifers, etc. Often costermongers used carts and barrows if itinerant, else they had a pitch (fixed location, sometimes in a shop). At night, costermongers stored their fruit or other goods where they lived. Various kinds of costermongers may be distinguished (below) but some authors group all types of costermongers together as "hucksters" or peddlers. In Chapter 33 of "A Child's History of England," Charles Dickens notes in reference to Charles II, "the Merry Monarch" (1630-1685), that one of Charles II's "bawdy women" was Nell Gwynn, who began as an "orange girl" or costermonger.
      Costermongers should be differentiated from the unemployed who attempted to find work as day laborers ("jobbers"): these people sold their labor, not goods. Lastly there were the beggars, who had neither labor that was valued nor goods to sell. Click to see a costermonger's barrow
  1. Baked-goods costermonger: sold roly-polys, Coventrys, plum duff (see "pub")
  2. Fried: a fried-fish costermonger
  3. Patterers and Cheap Johns: orators, barkers, etc
  4. Piemen: costermongers who sold meat pies and fruit pies, often made of Damson plums
  5. Puffers: salesmen who patter to inflate the price of goods
  6. Ballad-singers, Glee-singers, bagpipe players, harp players, clarionet players, Steamboat concertina players, etc.
  7. Fly paper makers, Catch 'em alive beetle or cricket men, Rat killers, Penny Mouse-Trap and Toy makers, etc. (see "pub")
  8. Penny profile cutters (silouettes)
  9. Trained animal performers
  10. Other types of costermongers, such as Ham sandwich men, Pea soup men, Hot eel men, Pickeled welk sellers, sellers of trees, shrubs, flowers (cut or in pots), etc.
• "Cottage System": The Cottage System worked in a way that was similar to the Tommy Shops. Manufacturers (especially cloth mills) forced their employees to live in specially-constructed cottages. The mill operators had to live nearby the mills; thus, the mill owners constructed cheap housing and the operators were forced to live in these "company houses" and pay exhorbitant rents, else they would not be employed. In some cases, employees had to pay rents for these cottages even if they didn't live in them. This was also used as a strike-breaking practice: operators who went out on strike could be thrown out of their houses.
• "Cove": Master; for example, the master of a school.
• "Covent-Garden Ague": A venereal disease (once there were many brothels at Covent Garden).
• "Covent-Garden Nun": A prostitute plying her trade around Covent Garden.
• "Crabbed": Not straight (as in the way a crab walks), or crooked or dishonest.
• "Cracksman": A burgler, especially a safe-breaker. Such a burgler uses a "petter-cutter" (a drill similar to a centrebit) to cut directly into a keyhole, betties (picklocks), and jemmys (crowbars).
• "Crape": "A piece of crape drawn over the face as a disguise.
• "Crib": A house or a shop.
• "Crossed and crossed again": Due to the cost of paper and the cost of postage, people were very frugal when writing. Writing in horizontal lines, then when out of space rotating ninety degrees (and continuing to write vertically), sometimes even rotating another 45 degrees, thus the writing "crossed".
• "Crushers": Police.
• "Cull": Simpleton (intended victim or mark).
• "Cursitor": A cursitor was a clerk that worked under a lawyer and made writs issued at the Court of Chancery.
• "Cut-away": A morning coat.

Top
D
• "Daffy": Daffy medicine was really gin.
• "Dame-Schools": A private elementary school usually run by an old woman or widow.
• "Dame's house": A boarding house at a school kept by a matron.
• "Dangerous trades": Various kinds of work in which aspects of the work environment, especially exposure to dangerous or toxic chemicals or substances was present. Examples included:
  1. "Phossy-jaw" (jaw bone degeneracy due to phosphorous, a disease common to people in the "lucifer" business (matches made of phosphorous)
  2. "Black-lung" disease (diseases of the lung due to coal dust), common among coal miners
  3. "White-lung" disease (diseases of the lung due to cotton fibers), common among the cotton cloth weavers
  4. Diseases caused by chemicals or minerals that contained arsenic, mercury, lead, etc. Thus as wallpaper used glues made of arsenic, diseases due to arsenic were quite common in the wallpaper businesses
  5. Diseases caused by chemicals or minerals such as lead, were especially prevelent in the ceramics or pottery industries. However, clay dust itself caused lung diseases even if lead was not present
  6. Work that required close proximity to animal diseases, such as anthrax were common. Diseases that were associated by close proximity to microorganisms were common, such as cholera, typhoid, etc.
• "Darby-roll": A gait peculiar to felons that have worn shackles for a long time.
• "Dark-lantern" or "Darky": A lantern with a sliding door that can be moved aside to allow light when needed.
• "Darkman's budge": A burglar's confederate that slips into a house by day and hides, opening the door by night.
• "Dell": Whore.
• "Devil's dust": Devil's dust was cloth that had been reduced to fiber by a shredding machine called a devil; the term therefore normally referred to an adulterated fabric. Devil's dust was manufactured for sale as opposed to use, because it was liable to tear or grow threadbare in a fortnight. Devil's dust was also called "shoddy".
• "Dickey": A small separate carriage seat for the driver or for a servant.
• "Didicai": Term that refers to Gipseys.
• "Dilly": A "dilly" refers to a diligence, a public horse-pulled coach or post-chaise.
• "Dining room post": This expression refers to thieves that pretend to be postmen. The thief delivers false letters to upstairs lodgers while the thief waits downstairs to be paid postage. While waiting, the unwatched thief robs the first room they see open.
• "Dip": Pickpocket. A "Lush Dip" is a class of pickpockets that steals from drunk persons.
• "Dish-clout": Dishcloth.
• "Dive" or "Diver": A pickpocket. Also called a "buzz", "foyst", and "prig".
• "Dodge": There are two uses:
  1. To trick or swindle, to mislead.
  2. To track or follow in a stealthy fashion (from 'to dog')
• "Doffing Mistress": A doffing mistress oversaw the young factory girls at the cloth spinning machines. The filled spindles or bobbins had to be periodically replaced by empty spindeles ("doffed"). Speed was emphasized, hence these doffing mistresses were feared.
• "Dog-shores": Short timbers that support or shore-up a ship under construction.
• "Dolly-shop": an illegal pawn shop that lent small sums at usurious rates. Aside from acting as "banks" for quick, small loans for the poor, dolly-shops were also a place where stolen items could quickly be sold. They were called "dolly-shops" as, although illegal, they advertised by having signs swinging over head, with a black doll dressed in white. Sometimes called "marine stores".
• "Dollymop": A whore.
• "Domino": A cloak worn with a mask.
• "Donkey witch": As some costermongers often used a donkey or horse to pull their barrows, their donkeys or horses became critical to some costermongers living. Thus out of anxiety, costermongers sometimes went to gypsy fortune-tellers to obtain help with their sick animals. These fortune-tellers were called "donkey witches" or "horse witches".
• "Dooky": Low-class theatre or Vaudeville (at a shop turned into a temporary theatre). Think of Bertolt Brecht's "Three-Penny Opera", not of course because Brecht's theatre is low, but because the poor might have difficulty paying more than three pennies for their entertainment. These shows were sometimes for two or three pence, and included clowns. Mountebanks, jesters, equestrians, etc. A "penny-gaff" was also known as a "dooky".
• "Do Polly": Refers to picking "oakum".
• "Doss house": A cheap lodging house, a place to sleep (for the poorest, sometimes called a 'poor man's hotel'). A poor person might be said to be 'on the doss'. People slept "dormitory style", often with orphaned children that worked renting part of a bed. For the wealthier poor, "cabins" could be rented that provided a degree of privacy. These cabins were very small cubbyhole like rooms with partitions, but no door, which had no separate roof, thus all the cabins opened up into one room. Related, " Two-relay system", "free doss" or sleeping in the open (see " skippering it").
        Discussing Manchester (although we can see from the above that this was not restricted to Manchester): "It often happens that a whole Irish family is crowded into one bed; often a heap of filthy straw or quilts of old sacking cover all in an indiscriminate heap, where all alike are degraded by want, apathy, and wretchedness."
        "The Condition of the Working Class in England", by Fredrich Engels, 2005, p.101.
• "Double monkey": To take more than one's share.
• "Double tooth": A molar tooth.
• "Doubling": Putting two threads together and twisting the doubled threads to obtain more strength. Women and children who were employed by mills often worked in the doubling rooms. Click to see a Doubling Room .
• "Downy": Wide-awake, very artful or knowing.
• "Drag": Robbery from carts and carriages: thief pulls items off passing carts or may even jump on a cart and throw items off the cart.
• "Draggle-tailed": With skirts dragging in the mud.
• "Dredgerman": A dredgerman was often viewed as a thief that throws property overboard a ship, later to dredge it up as well as one who fishes for dead bodies (suicides and murders).
• "Dress-house": Brothel.
• "Dress-lodger": A woman that is boarded, clothed and fed, payment made by prostitution.
• "Driz-lace": An inscription above the mantel-place in a doss house (sometimes the inscription is obscene). An example might include the couplet:
         "You are a B for false swearing,
         In hell they'll roast you like a herring."
• "Drury-Lane Ague": A venereal disease passed by prostitutes in the area of Drury Lane.
• "Duffer": A person who takes advantage and sells inferior quality (often stolen) goods.
• "Duke" or "Blue-ruin" or "Short" or "Tape" or "Max" or "Gatter" or "Jackey": Terms commonly used for gin.
• "Dustmen" or "dusties": Men who worked at the dust yards (see brieze). These men transported the dust and cinders from burnt coal. Other workers such as "sifters" examined the dust for valuables, etc. A running dustman was a small-time (independent) operator or dustman.
       "Our Mutual Friend", by Charles Dickens, is, among other things, an extended discussion of the coal dust heaps found in London.

Top
E
• "Earwig": To worm information from someone.
• "Ecod": "Ah God!" becomes "Egad", evolving into "Ecod".
• "Edge-man": A pick-pocket's accomplice.
• "Ethiopians": Black men (sometimes called "Jim Crows") as minstrels or serenaders.
• "Exquisite": A Gentleman, or a wealthy man: a "dandy". Also known as a "swell".
• "Extras": Courses or classes (provided at extra payment) in a private school.

Top
F
• "Factory Act (1833)": To reduce costs, women and children were often hired to replace the men, as hourly wages were lower for women and children than for men, and as women and children, with their smaller-sized hands, were better suited to operate mill machinery such as doubling machines (mill-bands). (See doubling.)
  The Factory Act of 1833 regulated the working hours of women and children in the cloth manufacturing mills. This act was as follows:
  1. No child workers under age of 9 years old were permitted
  2. Employers were required to have age certificates for all working children
  3. Children aged 9 to 13 years old were not permitted to work more than nine hours per day
  4. Children aged 13 to 18 years old were not permitted to work more than twelve hours per day
  5. Child workers were not permitted to work nights
  6. Child workers were required to have two hours of schooling each day
  7. There must be four factory inspectors to enforce the Factory Act
  Click for further details about the Factory Act .
• "Fakement": A counterfeiter or forger, or the act of counterfeiting or forgery. (Thus, fakement may be either noun or verb.) For example, the "fakement dodge" is the creation of counterfeit documents.
• "Family": Thieves and others who get their living "upon the cross" (by dishonest means).
• "Fam lay": The means of livelihood in which a thief visits goldsmith shops under the pretense of buying a gold wedding ring. While examining the rings, one or two rings are stolen by daubing the hand with some viscous substance. "Fam" is derived from "famble", meaning hand.
• "Fancy work": Prostitution, for example, a "fancy-house" is a brothel.
• "Fantail hat": A round hat with a long fan-shaped flap at the back to protect the neck, used by coal heavers and dustmen.
• "Fantoccini": Puppets which are made to move using strings or rods.
• "Farinagholkajingo": A word made up by Charles Dickens meant to exaggerate the foreign-sounding names of exotic dances.
• "Father-in-law": Step-father. Similarly, "Mother-in-law" means step-mother.
• "Farthingale": A hooped petticoat.
• "Fawney rig": Fawney (phoney) rig (game) is a fraud in which a con man drops a worthless ring that looks valuable, which is then picked up ("found") before the party meant to be cheated. This ring is then disposed of cheaply (but for far more than it is worth).
• "Ferret": A stout tape used to tie up bundles of legal documents (euphemism for red-tape).
• "Fibbed": Struck by blows delivered in rapid succession.
• "Fiddling": Making a living by providing such services as holding horses, sweeping street corners, etc.
• "Fig": In full uniform or official dress.
• "Figger": A boy thief that enters houses by windows to open a door, or hand out goods, also called a "snakesman". Male lookouts are called "crows" while female lookouts are called "canaries".
• "Figure 6" or "Aggravators" or "Aggerawators" or "Haggerawators": A "figure six" is a slang term for a man's lock of hair brought down from the forehead, well greased, and twisted in a spiral on the temple either in the direction of the ear or the eye. A variety of "Lovelock", for men. (See "A Dictionary of Slang and its Analogues, Past and Present", by John S. Farmer and W. E. Henley, London, 1890.)
• "File": An artful or shrewd person, also a pickpocket.
• "Fillip": A blow delivered by bending the thumb against the last joint of the first finger.
• "Finger-post": A sign found at a crossroads, terminating in pointing fingers, to point-out the direction of a town.
• "Fire-dogs": Andirons.
• "Fire prig": A "fire prig" is a thief who robs at fires under the pretense of assisting those putting out the fire. Such thieves may include the actual firemen assigned the task of putting out fires.
• "Fives' Court": To "settle" a dispute by fist fighting.
• "Flageolet": A small wind instrument having six finger holes and a mouthpiece.
• "Flash":
  1. Slang or cant.
  2. A thief, tramp or prostitute.
  3. Gaudy, dashing, ostentatious. Example: "A flash cove", meaning a thief. A "flash cove" might be used to sway or attract a female person for the purpose of robbery. Such a flash cove might use fancy clothes, moustachios and whiskers, military uniform, etc.
• "Flat": A dupe, a gullible person, a green-horn.
• "Flitch": The side of a piece of meat, as in a "flitch of bacon".
• "Floating academy": This expression refers to hulks (old ships used as prisons). The first director of hulk prisons was a Mr. Campbell. Thus another expression used with the same meaning as a "floating academy" is a "Campbell's academy".
• "Flue" or "fluffy": Lint.
• "Fogel": A pocket handkerchief. Example, a "fogel-hunter" is a pickpocket.
• "Follower": A man who calls at a house to court a maidservant.
• "Footpad": A highway robber, on foot (not horseback).
• "Fork" or "Hook": A pickpocket that is adept at using his fore and middle fingers.
• "Foster-sister": A girl nursed at the same breast with another child.
• "Found": Supplied by an employer as part of or in lieu of wages.
• "Fourgon": A horse-drawn baggage coach that also could carry servants.
• "Foyst": A pickpocket. Also "buzz", "diver", "prig".
• "French-gout": Syphilis.
• "French lamps": Oil lamps with a tubular wick (gave off more light than ordinary, flat-wick lamps).
• "Frog hornpipe": Comic solo dance with bent knees.
• "Fubsy": Slang for short and fat, as in "Fubsy women in printed gowns...".
• "Fugleman": An exemplary soldier placed in front of a company of soldiers to be emulated.
• "Fullied": To be fully committed at a trial.
• "Fustian jacket": Commonly-used name for a worker, because workers typically dressed in fustian clothes with chequer-brats.

Top
G
• "Gaby": A simpleton.
• "Gaiters": A legging from ankle to knee.
• "Games and related":
  1. All-fours: A card game in which there are four ways to win.
  2. Blind-hookey: A card game.
  3. Écart;é or Picquet: A card game for two people, excluding cards marked two to six.
  4. Fish: Counters used in card games, as "chips" are used in poker.
  5. Flying the garter: A child's game resembling leapfrog.
  6. Loo: A card game (played upon a "loo table"), similar to whist or bridge.
  7. Losing hazard: A card game in which the loser wins the steaks.
  8. Pea and Thimble: A game like Three-card-monty (a game based upon cheating).
  9. Picquet: A French card game.
  10. Pope Joan: A card game for three or more players, the eight of diamonds removed from the deck.
  11. Quadrille: A card game for four people.
  12. Ring the Bull: A game similar to quoites (similar to "horseshoes") in that one tries to toss a rope ring over a vertical spike. In "Ring the Bull", the spike or hook projects from a wall.
  13. Rouge-et-noir: A version of roulette.
  14. Round-game: A card game in which the players act as individuals, not partners.
  15. Vingt-et-un: Card game "twenty-One" or Blackjack.
  16. Whist: A card game similar to bridge.
  17. Yes and No.
• "Gamon": Someone who talks to get attention while a confederate steals something.
• "Garden-engine": A portable pump to water a garden.
• "Gatter" or "Duke" or "Blue-ruin" or "Short" or "Tape" or "Max" or "Jackey": Terms commonly used for gin.
• "Gentleman of Three Ins" and "Gentleman of Three Outs":
  1. A "Gentleman of Three Ins" means to be:
     1. In debt
     2. In gaol
     3. In danger of remaining in gaol for life
  2. A "Gentleman of Three Outs" means to be:
     1. Without money
     2. Without wit
     3. Without manners
• "Gile's, St.": Saint Giles was the focal area of London where theives and pickpockets were located.
• "Gilliflower": A plant (clove) with a clove-like scent.
• "Girandole": A branched candleholder.
• "Glass office": An office separated from the rest of the dwelling by glass partitions.
• "Glazed hat": Fabrics given a high shine by rubbing them with a metal-faced wooden block. Similarly, "stcks" or neckcloths could be glazed.
• "Glim": The light thrown by the lens of a lantern, or the entire lantern; often in reference to the lantern carried by a police officer. (See "bullseye")
• "Globes": Young ladies in small private schools were taught how to use both terrestrial globes and celestial globes.
• "Glory": Halo emminating from religious (holy) figures.
• "Gobbled": A gobble stitch is one that is too long, made in haste or lack of skill.
• "Gold Finder": A "gold finder" is one who cleans a "necessary house" (outhouse), also called a "nightman" or a "Tom-turd-man".
• "Gonoph": A thief, a pickpocket, possibly influenced by "Jew fences" (ie: a clear anti-Semitic reference). Also found in "On Duty with Inspector Field", by Charles Dickens.
• "Goose": A "goose" or "tailor's goose" is an iron used to press clothes to remove creases.
• "Gray coin": A two-headed coin or a two-tailed coin.
• "Griffin": Grim-looking guardians.
• "Grind the wind": Workhouse (see "Workhouse") inmates were often punished by being required to do useless work. One such form of work was the "universal staircase": a treadmill connected to a fan. Thus working the treadmill turned a fan (not to anyone's comfort, however), thus the term to "grind the wind".
• "Guernsey": A heavy knitted shirt worn by sailors.
• "Gut-spinner": Catgut is a strong cord usually made out of the skin of the intestines of sheep. Catgut is commonly used for violin strings and other musical string instruments, as well as tennis racquets.

Top
H
• "Haggerawators" or "Aggravators" or "Aggerawators" or "Figure 6" or: A "haggerawators" is a slang term for a man's lock of hair brought down from the forehead, well greased, and twisted in a spiral on the temple either in the direction of the ear or the eye. A variety of "Lovelock", for men. (See "A Dictionary of Slang and its Analogues, Past and Present", by John S. Farmer and W. E. Henley, London, 1890.)
• "Hair-guard": Braided hair used to secure a watch or piece of jewelery.
• "Hair trunk": A leather trunk that still retains the animal hair.
• "Half-baptised": A half-baptism was a shortened, convenient baptism, not in a church and without full service, thus a form of baptism used for the poor.
• "Half-boots": Half-boots extend half-way up the leg to the knee (however, "high boots" extend up to or beyond the knee). These terms were used as opposed to "High-lows", which were ankle-boots (higher than shoes).
• "Halter": Noose.
• "Hand-screen": A fan used to reflect heat from the fire in a fireplace.
• "Hanaper": A "hanaper" is the case or basket around a drinking vessel (archaic).
• "Handsome reward": A "handsome reward" means a horse-whipping.
• "Harman": A harman refers to a constable.
• "Harman beck": A harman beck means a parish beadle.
• "Hempen collar": Hangman's noose.
• "Hens and chickens": Common pots to hold stolen items (used by orphans to pay for their lodging). Larger items were placed in 'hens', smaller items were placed in 'chickens'.
• "Her Magesty's Carriage" or "the King's 'bus": Black Maria (police van, in which people picked up were typically beaten).
• "Hessian boots": High boots (above the knee) where the front of the boot is higher than at the back. Tassels were commonly located at the front at the top of the boots.
• "Higgler": A pedler that exchanged small goods for poultry and dairy products.
• "High-strikes": Hysterics.
• "Hind": A farm servant.
• "Hocussed": A state of stupefaction caused by a liquor laced with laudenum.
• "Hook (noun) ": A pickpocket. A "bus hook" is a pickpocket that operates on a bus. Related, see "edge-man".
• "Hook it! (verb) ": Leave! or Get out!
• "Hop-picker": Prostitute.
• "Hornpipe": A sailor's dance, accompanied by a wind instrument made of horn.
• "House-lad": Male household servant (of ANY age).
• Housing: Housing for the very poor (when they had housing) typically consisted of one room which might have a few pieces of furniture or might be bare; windows (if there were any, as some rooms were in basements underground). Typically these rooms were overcrowded, probably averaging five or more people (sometimes related). If there was a bed, very often it might consist of rags or just straw. Sometimes these rooms were shared with animals. Both sexes shared these rooms, with people from the youngest to the oldest ages. People typically slept in whatever clothes they wore during the day, bearing in mind that most people were clothed in rags to begin with. Excrement was poured from buckets into the street, or into basements, or in back yards (where it often mixed with the water supply, causing cholera and other diseases). No special eating facilities existed, considering that in many cases the people had so little to eat that they starved to death. The high incidence of rickets shows how poor the working man's diet was.
        Housing and living conditions such as this were the common situation not only in London but in other major cities such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, and other population centers. In most cases, the housing described applied to orphans as well as the very old who had no other family. For example:
  
  
  "are often so narrow that a person can step from the window of one house into that of its opposite neighbor, while the houses are piled so high, storey upon storey, that the light can scarcely penetrate into the court or alley that lies between. In this part of the city there are neither sewers nor other drains, nor even privies belonging to the houses. In consequence, all refuse, garbage, and excrements of at least 50, 000 persons are thrown into the gutters every night, so that, in spite of all street sweeping, a mass of dried filth and foul vapors are created, which not only offend the sight and smell, but endanger the health of the inhabitants in the highest degree. Is it to be wondered at, that in such localities all considerations of health, morals, and even the most ordinary decency are utterly neglected? On the contrary, all who are intimately acquainted with the condition of the inhabitants will testify to the high degree which disease, wrethedness, and demoralization have here reached. Society in such districts has sunk to a level indescribably low and hopeless. The houses of the poor are generally filthy, and are evidently never cleansed. They consist in most cases of a single room which, while subject to the worst ventilation, is yet usually kept cold by the broken and badly-fitting windows, and is sometimes damp and partly below ground level, always badly furnished and thouroughly uncomfortable, a straw-heap often serving the whole family for a bed, upon which men and women, young and old, sleep in revolting confusion. Water can be had only from public pumps, and the difficulty of obtaining it naturally fosters all possible filth."    "The Condition of the Working Class in England", by Fredrich Engels, Penguine Classics, 2005, pp. 77, 78 (quoting an English journal)
  
  Indeed, every available piece of land, even London Bridge was used! See rookery and Tom-all-alones.


• "Horse witch": As some costermongers often used a horse or donkey to pull their barrows, their horses or donkeys became critical to some costermongers living. Thus out of anxiety, costermongers sometimes went to gypsy fortune-tellers to obtain help with their sick animals. These fortune-tellers were called "donkey witches" or "horse witches".
• "Hook it (verb form) ": To sneak or steal away.
• "Hue and Cry": Historically, the "Hue and Cry", later "The Weekly Hue and Cry", then "The Police Gazette". This was a police bulletin of crimes committed and wanted criminals.
• "Hugger-mugger": Houses where very poor people lived were not constructed in neat rows. The streets curved, were at angles, and were very narrow (in fact were really alleys). The houses and workshops were built to be very crowded and close together. While people now would find houses and streets constructed in this fashion to be picturesque, the viewpoint held in the 19th century was that this was unhealthy, and even engendered disease by preventing ventilation. One should bear in mind that the Victorian age was considered to be an age of the White Plague (tuberculosis). In addition to tuberculosis, diseases such as typhus and cholera, and child death rates in excess of 57% all support how unhealthy in fact these living conditions were.
        Houses and streets built "hugger-mugger" were also felt to be conducive of moral disease and criminality. The term "hugger-mugger" was used to refer to houses and streets (or anything else) that was crowded, at odd angles, congested, conducive towards disease and immorality. Frederick Engel notes that such housing conditions and an environment that is so unhealthy, causes psychological problems; specifically, the need to avoid depression by "intemperance".
        Commenting upon the ease with which the living quarters of workers may be distinguished (and, hypocritically, hidden from the eyes and sensibilities of the wealthy), Frederick Engels writes the following of Manchester:
  
  "Here one is in an almost undisguised working men's quarter, for even the shops and beerhouses hardly take the trouble to exhibit a trifling degree of cleanliness. But all this is nothing in comparison with the courts and lanes which lie behind, to which access can be gained only through covered passages, in which no two human beings can pass at the same time. Of the irregular cramming together of dwellings in ways which defy all rational plan, of the tangle in which they are crowded literally one upon the other, it is impossible to convey an idea.",    "The Condition of the Working Class in England", by Fredrich Engels, Penguine Classics, 2005, pp. 87, 88.


• "Hulk": Due to shortages in prison space, old ships hulls (or hulks) were used to warehouse prisoners. The character Abel Magwitch, in Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations", was imprisoned and escaped from a hulk in the Thames Estuary, only to be recaptured and transported to the prison colony of Australia.
• "Hummums": A bathhouse.
• "Hurdle": A sledge used to drag a condemned to execution.
• "Hurrier": Hurriers tended to be six to eight years old. They wore a leather 'gurl' belt with a swivel chain attached. The chain of the gurl belt was attached to a sled. The hurrier's job was to pull the sled for a distance of over a mile underground in mines, where the passageways were so small that only a child could fit. Upon reaching the coal face, such children had to fend for themselves as the miners loaded the sleds with chunks and slabs of coal. Once the sled was filled, these children had to pull the sleds back to the surface. Relief could be anticipated, as the shift was only 12 hours long. With luck, a hurrier could recruit a younger child to act as a 'thruster' and shove the sled from behind.
• "Hush-shop": A hush-shop is an unlicensed "jerry" (a "speak-easy").

Top
I
• "Ikey": A Jewish fence.
• "Imperial": A special luggage case to store luggage at the top of a coach.
• Inexpensive cloth:
  1. Union or double-twist: a mix of linen and cotton
  2. Linsey-woolsey: a mix of flax and wool
  
  Click Link for further information
• "inexplicables": Trousers. Also called "unmentionables".
• "Interesting situation": The delicate, proper way to express that a woman is pregnant (married or otherwise).
• "Italian Iron (for clothes)": A cylindrical iron used for fluting or crimping frills.

Top
J
• "Jack-in-the-Green": A person (clown) enclosed in a wooden or wicker pyramid-shapped frame, covered with leaves.
  Click to see a "Jack-in-the-Green"
• "Jack-in-office": An official exhibiting insolence or nonsense.
• "Jack-in-the-water": An attendant at the stairs leading down into the river, whose job was to help people alight a boat.
• "Jack Ketch": The hangman. While putting down the Monmouth Rebellion, King James II (1633-1701) sent a Colonel Kirk to murder and rob the populace, and buy their lives at the cost of all their possessions. A specially appointed "hanging judge", Jeffreys, was dispatched, and is still remembered as the "Bloody Assize". Jeffreys' reward was to be made Lord Chancellor. (When referring to Jeffreys, James II said, "... such another man could not easily be found in England.") Jack Ketch soon was used as the name of the hangman in Punch and Judy puppet plays.
      Many people were executed, their mangled bodies steeped in cauldrons of boiling pitch and tar and displayed publicly at roadsides and churches. One of the executioners was named "Tom the Boilerman", and ever since known as "Jack Ketch".
      James II favored Catholicism but was so corrupt and heavy-handed that even his own troops opposed him. With almost no public support, high or low, "The Protestant religion was established in England, and England's great and glorious revolution was complete."(See Dickens, Charles, "A Child's History of England" Chapter XXXIV, "James II".)
• "Jackey" or "Tape" or "Short" or "Max" or "Gatter" or "Duke" or "Blue-ruin": Terms commonly used for gin.
• "Jakes": An outhouse.
• "Jemmy": A crowbar.
• "Jerry shop" or "Tom and Jerry shop": A beerhouse for the poor.
• "Jointure": Lands held conjointly by husband and wife, but assigned to the wife on the husbands death.
• "Judy" ("David Copperfield"), instead of "jury", and bob swore" ("David Copperfield"), for those who were ignorant of the French "bon soir". Similarly, see "after David" (affadavit) and "lulu" in place of the French word "lieu" (often used by lawyers ignorant of French), and "travail" (same spelling as the French word, but mispronounced in English).
• "Jury droop": A court lawyer would normally bow to the jury, but in time this bow became perfunctory, barely a gesture, merely a droop.

Top
K
• "Kate" or "Katey" or "Betty" or "Jenny": A female pickpocket.
• "Ken": A house, thus a flash ken is a house of thieves, a fencing ken is a warehouse used to secret stolen goods.
• "Ken cracker": A housebreaker.
• "Kennel": Related to channel, thus gutter.
• "Kerseymere": A fine woolen cloth, from "cassimere", an alternate lexical form of cashmere. Note that "Kersey" was a rougher woolen cloth than "Kerseymere".
• "Kersey": A woolen cloth with a woven pattern. Probably originated in Kersey, Suffolk.
• "Ketch, Jack": The hangman. While putting down the Monmouth Rebellion, King James II (1633-1701) sent a Colonel Kirk to murder and rob the populace, and buy their lives at the cost of all their possessions. A specially appointed "hanging judge", Jeffreys, was dispatched, and is still remembered as the "Bloody Assize". Jeffreys' reward was to be made Lord Chancellor. (When referring to Jeffreys, James II said, "... such another man could not easily be found in England.")
      Many people were executed, their mangled bodies steeped in cauldrons of boiling pitch and tar and displayed publicly at roadsides and churches. One of the executioners was named "Tom the Boilerman", and ever since known as "Jack Ketch".
      James II favored Catholicism but was so corrupt and heavy-handed that even his own troops opposed him. With almost no public support, high or low, "The Protestant religion was established in England, and England's great and glorious revolution was complete."(See Dickens, Charles, "A Child's History of England" Chapter XXXIV, "James II".)
• "kick or keeks (Scottish)": A 'kick' refers to breeches, specifically when a pickpocket directs his attention to the pockets in breeches.
• "Kidderminster carpet": A patterned carpet originally made in Kidderminster.
• "Kiddy": Professional thief who was a flashy dresser (a flash cove).
• "Killibeate taste": Tasting of iron (in drinking water).
• "Kinchin": A little child. (See "lay", "Fagin" worked in the kinchin lay).
• "kip": A place to sleep. For example: A four-penny kip house.
• "Kirk-buzzer": A pickpocket that specializes in picking pockets in churches.
• "Kissing the shuttle": Refers to diseases passed from worker to worker in the cloth manufacturing mills.
• "Kit": A small, especially narrow fiddle (cittern), used by dancing masters.
• "Knackered": Worn out. For example, used clothes are knackered clothes.
• "Knee-cords": Corduroy trousers, extending from the waist to just below the knees (knee-breeches).
• "Knee Smalls": Close-fitting breeches that end in ties at the knees.
• "Knobstick": The term 'knobstick' was used to designate a strike-breaker (scab). Similarly, the term "blackleg" was a term used to designate a strike-breaker, but was limited to Irish strike-breakers.
• "Knocker Up": A man or woman who went from house to house, knocking on doors with a stick or some object to wake up factory workers click to see.
Top
L
• "Lag" or "Lagged": Refers to the "transportation" of convicts to Botany Bay. Generally, to "lag" means to be caught breaking the law.
• "Lancashire manner": The wrestling style found in Lancashire: contestants in stocking feet, any part of the body can be touched, battling on the ground was permitted.
• "Lappets": Decorative streamers attached to a lady's hat.
• "Lawn sleeves": Lawn is a fine linen used for the sleeves of bishops.
• "Lay": A pursuit or means of livelihood. Example: "kinchin lay" means robbing children. "Fagin" worked in the kinchin lay.
• "Lay-down collar": A collar that lies flat on the shirt (as opposed to a stand-up collar).
• "Leaving shop": An unlicensed pawnshop.
• "Leg-bail": To run away.
• "Life-preserver": A bludgeon (loaded with lead) used for self-defence by burglars. Another name for a "life-prserver" is a "persuader".
• "Lighting": A brief history of lighting in England:
  1. Candle
  2. Oil (ending by 1827)
  3. Gas (starting in 1807)
  4. Electricity
• "Line": To engage in conversation while a confederate robs a person or a house.
• "Link-boy": A boy employed to carry a link (torch) to provide light for pedestrians in the street. (Dickens, "Pickwick Papers", Chapter XXVI)
• "List shoes": List shoes are shoes made by sewing strips of leather to a cloth sole. The cloth sole makes such shoes very quiet. As an example, a thief might prefer to wear "list shoes" to enable the thief's footsteps not to be heard.
• "Lob": To rob a till.
• "Loblolly boy": A ship's surgeon's assistant.
• "Lob-sneaking": Boys who go into shops on their hands and feet, get around the counter, take the till, and then sneak out in the same manner - their safety depending on no customer coming in meantime.
• "Lock": A ware-house where thieves could securely lock up stolen goods.
• "Locofoco": A cigar with a friction-match embedded at its tip.
• "Loft-room": A room over a stable.
• "Lucky": An escape.
• "Lues": Syphillis (commonly known as 'the itch').
• "Lulu": In place of the French word "lieu" (often used by lawyers ignorant of French), and "travail" same spelling as the French word, but mispronounced in English. See also "Judy" ("David Copperfield"), instead of "jury", bob swore" ("David Copperfield"), for those who were ignorant of the French "bon soir" and "after David" (affadavit).
• "Lummy": First-class.
• "Lurk": A thief (that lurks, awaiting his opportunity).

Top
M
• "Macaroni": A ‘macaroni’, was a fop or dandy with an extravagant hairstyle and affected mannerisms, often viewed as a buffoon. The term ‘macaroni’ also often referred to a homosexual with the same mannerisms and dress style.
• "Machinist": The 19th century was above all, a time of obvious industrial development. While people now are accustomed to machines, during the 19th century machines were viewed as miraculous things, beyond the understanding of normal human beings. In fact, machines were viewed as in some sense realizing malevolent spirits with a kind of personality and will of their own. Thus machines powered by steam were sometimes called "self-actuators" as if they moved by their own will power. Thus a person who worked with machines was in some sense not an ordinary person. The designation of work known as a "machinist" referred to this kind of miraculous work.
• "Mad Tom": A person that simulates madness to ease the ability to pilfer.
• "Madge": Refers to female genitals.
• "Magpie" or "Mag": See units of currency.
• "Magsman": A "magsman" is a con man, sometimes called a "skittle-sharp". Like Three-Card-Monty, the magsman plays dishonest gambling games such as skittles and card games.
• "Mantua-maker": A dressmaker.
• "Marine-store": A store used most often as a fence for stolen goods. Often called "dolly-shops". Originally, marine stores sold goods required on ships.
• "Mark": A target or victim, as of an intended theft.
• "Market-cross": A polygonal building with open arches at all sides, used as a shelter during rain on market days.
• "Marrowbones": Street musicians often paid not to play their music.
• "Mauley": Refers to the pugilistic use of one's fists.
• "Max" or "Gatter" or "Duke" or "Blue-ruin" or "Short" or "Tape" or "Jackey": Terms commonly used for gin.
• "Millies":
  1. A condescending name given to mill workers.
  2. Refering to the "universal staircase" or the treadmill. Thus those who have been "milled" means those who have been jailed.
• "Moon-calf": A congenital idiot.
• "Morrice": To be in a hurry to leave.
• "Mort" or "Mot": A woman or girl.
• "Mosaic Arab": The meaning is Jews.
• "Mot" or "Mort": A woman or girl.
• "Mother", alternatively "Uncle": Pawnbroker or fence.
• "Mother-in-law": Step-mother. Similarly, "Father-in-law" means step-father.
• "Move": The hidden or ulterior motive (reason) of some scheme or business.
• "Muddle": To throw a person in the mud.
• "Mudlarks": People who waded into mud to salvage bits of coal, copper nails, rope, etc from the Thames River at low tide. Often orphan children or very old and infirm people, they were frequently almost nude (due to poverty), covered in mud, and barefoot, even during the winter. Mudlarks often cut themselves on glass, nails, etc. in the river mud. Mudlarks often worked in collusion with workers on boats or ships, who threw contraband to the mudlarks over the sides of the ships.
• "Muff": Refers to female genitals.
• "Muffin-cap": A flat, woolen cap worn by charity school boys.
• "Mummer": Mummers are people in some aspect of the theatrical business. Mummers have their own 'slang', examples being:
  1. "nanti panka his nabs snide", meaning "I wouldn't turn a person up, or act nasty to him, but would share money the same as if we were pitching together".
  2. 'Panka each other bona' or share.
  3. 'Duey bionk peroon a darkey' or two shillings each, in the night.
  4. 'Say' means yes, 'nanti' means no.
  5. 'Snide' means counterfeit (coins).
• "Mumper": Genteel beggar.
• "Murphy bed": People not well-off financially, living in an apartment that is small, attempt to make double use of their living space. This double use is accomplished by hiding a bed, or disguising a bed. The bed might be hidden in a wall-closet (commonly called a "Murphy bed"), or may fold up vertically against a wall, the visible side looking like a bookcase (commonly called a "Turnup bedstead"). Alternatively, a couch (or sofa) may convert into a bed (commonly called a "sofa bed"). In each case, the owner fears being categorized as not sufficiently wealthy, thus the desire to hide or disguise the bed or lack of adequate living space.
• "Mush-faker": A tramp or vagrant that pretends to be repairing an umbrella to avoid arrest as a vagrant.

Top
N
• "Nankeen": A more expensive cloth worn by those who were of the wealthier classes. The poorer classes might not be able to afford nankeens. See Fustian jackets.
• "Navvy": A laborer employed in excavation or construction, such as a ditch digger.
• "Necessary house": A "necessary house" is an outhouse. See "gold finder".
• "Neckankercher": Dialect for "neck-handerchief".
• "Nick": To steal.
• "Nightcap": A horse's nightcap is a halter or blinder, thus referring to a person with his head covered, in preparation of hanging.
• "Night-cellar": A cellar serving as a tavern, place of entertainment, or refuge for persons of the lowest class but not entirely impoverished (available to both sexes).
• "Nob": To take up a collection (someone who collects a fee such as at a Punch and Judy show).
• "Noddy": A simpleton.
• "Nothing to say to someone": Means Not intending to accept a proposal of marriage.
• "Nypper": A "nypper" is a "cut-purse", which differs somewhat from a "foyst" in that a "cut-purse" cut into purses to access goods as opposed to putting one's hand sub-sensually into the marks pocket and removing the item.

Top
O
• "Oakum": Loose, coarse flax fiber or "tow" from used rope. Oakum was created by convicts or inmates of workhouses. Work with oakum, as well as breaking rocks, treadmills, "crank labour", and working as hospital volunteers (often with patients dying from contagion), or scrubbing was viewed as the proper punishment for being in a workhouse. Refusing to do such work would result in imprisonment. In the morning, the poor (men and women were segregated), one tub of water was used by each person to wash (the water was not changed). The food consisted of "skilly" (a watery gruel: three quarts of oatmeal to three and one-half buckets of water, but sometimes flour was substituted for the oatmeal). Spoons sometimes provided, with pannikins.
• "Old Bailey": The "Old Bailey" was the Central Criminal Court of England, and was associated with Newgate prison.
• "Old Clem": A song of blacksmiths (Old Clem refers to St. Clemens, the patron saint of blacksmiths).
• "Old Peg": A low quality cheese from Yorkshire.
• "Old hat": Female genitals.
• "One pair" , "two pair": Typically, each floor of a narrow building had at least two tennants. The tennant on the first floor in the back was called the "one pair back", the tennants on the second floor in the front would be the "two pair front", etc.
      Distinctions between the front and the back were not sufficient. A category of cartography was used to describe not just the fronts and backs of buildings, but the floors as well. "Here is a large Parisian apartment building on a crowded block, filled with people from its foundation to its very roof. [In it are] the extreme luxury on the first floor, the extreme poverty under the roof, and the enterprise and activity of its middle."⁴

• "One-room-lark" or "One-room-dodge": Families with more than one child were not supposed to live in a single room. Thus families would hide their children so that they could stay in a single room. Sometimes entire families might be evicted if more than one child were to be "tumbled".
• "'op the wag": To be truant from school.
• "Out-dacious": Corruption of audacious.
• "Outsides": Coach passengers who rode on the seats outside, on the roof.

Top
P
• "Packman": Itinerant peddler who carries his goods in a pack on his back.
• "Paddin' the 'oof": Walking.
• "Paid": To make waterproof by covering with pitch.
• "Pair of tops": High boots with tops of contrasting colour.
• "Parish": Until the Local Government Act of 1894, local government was administered by the parish. This was a church, clergyman, and the vestry. The vestry governed from the vestry-room attached to the church. Local ratepayers elected the parish officers: clerk, church wardens, and overseers, including the beadle. Until "The New Poor Law of 1834" the vestry took care of the poor. The New Poor Law transferred responsibility for the parish poor from the vestries to the new "Boards of Guardians" with their infamous workhouses.
• "Parlour-boarder": A priviledged pupil at a boarding school who lived with the headmaster's family.
• "Parlyaree": The language of circusmen, showmen, itinerant actors, Romany. See "mummer".
• "Patten": A wooden sole shoe with a ring and straps, used to walk in muddy streets.
• "Paviour": A worker that paves roads (from Middle English).
• "Peach": To become an informer (as in impeach). To peach means to "split" or inform upon.
• "Peck": Food.
• "Peg": A place where free food could be obtained. The Salvation Army (founded 1865) provided "free food" to a limited number of poor, but as the poor were "required" to spend hours queueing up to obtain the food, then listen to religious lectures (the poor called 'missionaries' and the Salvation Army 'soul-snatchers'), it can be argued that the food obtained was hardly free as in a capitalist society such as Victorian England, time is money (time spent getting a peg meant time lost finding a "kip" [place to sleep] or work). For an accurate description of the Salvation Army as a "Peg", see    "The People of the Abyss", by Jack London.
• "Penny-dreadful": Similar to a comic book, emphasizing criminal or horror-story behavior.
• "Penny-gaff" also a "Tu' Pennygaff": Low-class theatre or Vaudeville (at a shop turned into a temporary theatre). Think of Bertolt Brecht's "Three-Penny Opera", not of course because Brecht's theatre is low, but because the poor might have difficulty paying more than three pennies for their entertainment. These shows were sometimes for two or three pence, and included clowns. Mountebanks, jesters, equestrians, etc. A "penny-gaff" was also known as a "dooky".
• "Penny Post": The London postal service was the private "Penny Post" until 1801, when the government took charge with the "Two Penny Post".
• "Perfume of Geneva": "Geneva" was misnomer used by the ignorant that, when used correctly, derives from "Juniper", as used in Gin. Thus "Perfume of Geneva" meant gin.
• "Persuader": A bludgeon, sometimes called a "life-preserver".
• "Peterman": A fisherman that fishes illegally.
• "Petticoat Lane": Rendezvous for old-clothes dealers (Jews).
• "Pinner-up": Wall-song sellers (stationed near a wall, selling songs).
• "Plant": A target for criminal activity.
• "Poll": A thief's kept woman (often a prostitute) was called a "Poll".
• "Poor Laws": During the 17th century, the poor were taken care of in parishes, but the poor were not looked upon kindly: often the poor were manacled and flogged.
       As the poor unfortunately did not disappear and as costs of helping the poor were not welcomed, parish records were used to determine if the poor were residents. If the poor were not residents, they were transported out of the parish (expenses for the poor thus avoided).
       By 1723, the Knatchbull Amendement established workhouses for the poor. However, ways continued to be sought to avoid any expenses for taking care of the poor. The view of Adam Smith came to the rescue, when he stated in his "Principles of Population" that the existing poor laws created the very poverty that the laws were designed to relieve. As a family could claim poor relief, people contracted earlier marriages and had larger families. Therefore all forms of poor relief were counterproductive because they would be swallowed by increases in the poor population. While Adam Smith felt that this was obvious, he felt it even more obvious not to provide proof of his faulty assertions.
       By the first half of the 19th century, not sufficiently influenced by reason (the violence of the French Revolution), the idea became current that the costs of helping the poor must be reduced. Thus by 1834, parishes banded together into "unions" to share expenses of the poor. To reduce expenses (the reason being to "aid the poor in being productive"), these union workhouses were designed to be deterrents of poverty:
  1. Treadmils were established to make work seem endless
  2. Work to be done was designed to be unattractive:
     1. Working with "oakum"
     2. Breaking rocks
     3. Grinding corn by hand (not using mills), etc.
     4. "Crank" labour (winding hard turning gears that did nothing except create work
     5. Unwed mothers were branded as immoral by being forced to wear yellow gowns
     6. The food provided would only be eaten by people that were truly starving
     7. Reading (anything) was prohibited
     8. Parents were not permitted to speak to their children
     9. Multiple persons shared the same bed
     10. Children were beaten (at times beaten to death)
  3. Those not admitted into workhouses at times died of hunger on the workhouse steps.
       The poor understood the purpose of the workhouses established by the Poor Laws and avoided the workhouses if they could. Some of the poor committed suicide rather than go to a workhouse.
       The poor were in fact created in ever-increasing numbers as workers were forced off aristocratic estates, and also due to becoming surplus labour as a direct result of the Industrial Revolution. The true causes of the creation of poor people were not accepted. Nevertheless, as society moved forward, the barbaric Poor Laws could be expected to disppear. In fact, the last British workhouses closed in 1930, just in time for the luxuries of the Great Depression.
       The introduction and spread of modern slavery, initially concentrated in large sugar plantations, allowed the concentration of capital that was employed in creating the Industrial Revolution. In addition, the Mercantilist views then current required that colonies be used to create raw products, while industrial expansion was sharply limited to the mother country. Thus raw sugar was grown in colonial locations, while sugar refining was limited to England. Similarly, the production of iron was limited to the mother country (to create manacles for slaves). In order to support a standing Navy, ships used to transport raw goods were required (in larger numbers than if sugar had been rationally refined in the colonies). A standing Navy could then defend colonial posessions as well as trade. Limiting slavery (Abolition of the Atlantic Slave trade), competitor nations would have their Industrial Revolution thereby retarded. Reducing costs by preventing the slave trade, and instead enslaving the countries that provided slaves began the history of Colonialism.
       Parallel with these international developments, (examining the cloth industry and the associated mining industry), the home-spinners and weavers who were also farming families and effectively were uneducated became specialized as weavers in the cotton industry (limited to the mother country of course). This was possible due to the invention of the "jenny" (engine), a machine that spun yarn using multiple spinning wheels, powered by water mills, eventually by coal powered steam engines. The "jenny" supported the "division" of labour with its increased production due to specialization. Further developments such as the "spinning throstle" and "spinning mule" allowed machines to spin yarn, while in parallel, the power-loom was developed. These developments expanded from cotton fibre, to flax fibre (linen), woolen fibres (worsteds), as well as "blends" (see "inexpensive cloth". Cloth became cheaper, and internationally, competitors could no longer compete, thus contributing to further capital formation as well as colonial "under-development". Coal mines such as those at Newcastle (see coal whipper and hurrier) began to use steam-powered machinery, as did iron mines.
       Farming families ceased to exist and instead of being dispersed in the countryside sought work in population centers (Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Spitalfields [London], etc.) where the weaving mills were located. Industrial workers (no longer working families) became landless, extended families no longer lived together and learned from each other. Cheap slum housing (see hugger-mugger and housing) replaced the farms. The proletariat had been born: a landless worker, who now required an education to operate machinery and who was concentrated in industrial urban centers, ready to exert their collective educated politial power. The patriarchal relation between working men and employers becomes progressively more open to question.
        This aspect of history is discussed in "The Condition of the Working Class in England", by Fredrich Engels
        "Little Dorrit", by Charles Dickens, also shows this process of the Industrial Revolution that was sweeping England.
  The Brothers Cheeryble in "Nicholas Nickleby", by Charles Dickens, as well as the relation between Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit in "A Christmas Carol", by Charles Dickens, exemplify this patriarchal relationship.
• "Poor-surgeon's-friend": Orange peels used (in lieu of today's banana peels) to cause someone to slip and fall, thus requiring the services of a surgeon.
• "Pounce": Pumice powder used to prepare parchment to be used for writing upon.
• "Pound it": To wager ("bet a pound on it"); for example, "I'll pound it".
• "Precentor": The lead singer in a church choir.
• "Press": A clothes press.
• "Prig": Theft, especially a pickpocket. Also called a "buzz", "diver", and "foyst".
• "Pub": As crowding in terrible living conditions was common, for many people, a "pub" was a pleasant environment. Friends could meet there, and in times of inclement weather, being in a pub was preferable to being outside. A large portion of the patrons of pubs were children (perhaps as high as 20%). To attract child customers, the "publicans" often displayed toys and pubs were places where tarts, puddings, roly-poly, etc. as well as "Baby's Head" were available to attract children.
• "Pure-finders": Collectors of dog excrement, which was then sold to leather tanners (who used the excrement to "purify" leather during the tanning process).
• "Push": A term used by criminals to refer to a crowd (a place where pickpockets can operate, and while people are in the crowd, their homes might be empty, thus affording an opportunity to rob houses as well).
• "Put-up job": A preconcerted plan to effect a robbery.

Top
Q
• "Quartern loaf": A quartern loaf of bread referred to a four pound loaf of bread. A half-quartern loaf was also called a four penny bran.
• "Quisby": Not quite right, or unusual.
• "Quod": A jail.

Top
R
• "Rack-rent": Exhorbitant rent.
• "Ragged school": Charity schools for poor children (95% of the population was illiterate). To get an idea of the level of education, Sunday schools of the State Church and of the Quakers and other religions "...do not teach writing, 'because it is too worldly an employment for Sunday.'" As a further example, "...A boy of seventeen years old, did not know that twice two are four..." However, it was considered "...noteworthy for those who had never heard even of Saint Paul, Moses or Solomon, were very well- instructed as to the life, deeds, and character of Dick Turpin, the street robber, and especially of Jack Shepherd, the thief and gaol-breaker."
        "The Condition of the Working Class in England", by Fredrich Engels, 2005, p.141
        (and Henry Mayhew as well)
• "Ran-dan": The Thames river police used "duty boats" rowed "Ran-dan". Ran-dan meant that there were 2 rowers (each with one oar), one at the port gunwale, the second at the starboard gunwale, and one aft who stood at the stern and used a pair of sculls.
• "Rappee": A dark, coarse kind of snuff.
• "Rat-catcher": A person who caught rats. Rats were used in pubs in which dogs or cats were set to fight against rats for purposes of entertainment.
• "Rattletrap, Rattle-trap": Anything worn out, rickety, or rattling; especially, a dilapidated old wagon or coach.
• "Rattling-cove": Coachman.
• "Rattle-mumper": Beggars that congregate around coaches.
• "Reader": Reader referring to "book" in pocketbook.
• "Reader merchant": A pickpocket that specializes in picking the pockets of pocketbooks.
• "Reddlemen": Reddlemen covered several miles, selling compounds of red ochre. Red ochre is a clay that is red due to the presence of iron oxide. Shepherds used this natural dye mixed with chalk called "reddle", to mark or "brand" their sheep.
• "Respectable family man lurk": A beggar pretends to be a respectable family man who is out of work. Not only is he destitute, but he is usually accompanied by a wife and children, where the "wife" and "children" are hired. The beggar's object is to excite compassion and thus be a more effective beggar. Note: see "autem", sense "b".
• "Reverse or back Flash": Slang, partly in reverse was commonly used. A few examples"
  • Enif: Fine
  • Enun: Nine
  • Eno: One
  • Epip: Pipe
  • Esclop: Police
  • Es-roch: Horse
  • Esuch: Horse
  • Evatch: To Have
  • Evif: Five
  • Exis: Six
  • Evlenet Sithnoms: Twelve Months
  • Flatch: Half
  • Net: Ten
  • Nitraf: Farthing
  • Genol: Long
  • Pac: Cap
  • Yennep: Penney
• "Rocker": Pertaining to language or Parlyaree (for example: "Can you rocker Romany?").
• "Roke" or "roak" or "rook" or "rouk": Mist, smoke, or damp.
• "Roll": The official list of lawyers qualified to practice law.
• "Rookery": A "rookery" is a slum, See housing and Tom-all-alones.
• "Rout": A rout is a party.
• "Ruffles": Ruffles (not ruffs which are fluted figure-eight collars) are lace worn at the wrists.
• "Rullocks": Oarlocks.
• "Rum": Means excellent or good. Some examples:
  1. "Rum cove": gentleman
  2. "Rum dell": pretty whore
  3. "Rum cull": rich simpleton
  4. "Rum patter": persuasive talk
• "Runner": A police officer (as in the "Bow Street Runners). A "trap".
• "Running-smobble": A group of thieves who enter into a shop at dark and pretend to be drunk. After some troublesome behavior, the candles or lights are put out and one or more thieves run off with goods while the others stuff dirt into the mouths and face of the people who attempt to call out. This is done to surprise the victims, giving all the thieves an opportunity to escape.
• "Running snavel": Thieves watch children going off to school in the morning, carrying money and food in their hands. The thief or thieves persuade the child to go into a small alley and then steal anything of value from the child. See "kinchin lay".
• "Rybeck": A moiety of profit.

Top
S
• "Sack": To insert one's hand in a sack means to pick a pocket.
• "Sambo": Derogatory term used to refer to a Black slave. Originally, "zambaggoa", then "zambo", then "sambo", this term applied to the offspring of a Black and an Amerindian. Thus "Will John the footman's coat be transferred to Sambo or Mungo, standing on cucumber-shinned extremities on the foot-board of a chariot belonging to some militia field-marshal or other star of the Upper Ten Thousand of New York?". See "Old Clothes!", Household Words, conducted (edited) by Charles Dickens, Vol. V, April 17, 1852, p. 97
• "Sawney":
  1. Stolen bacon
  2. Nick-name for a Scotchman, just as "Paddy" is a nick-name for an Irishman and "Taffy" is a nick-name for a Welchman
• "Screw": Screwing means theft by housebreaking or burglary. "Screw" refers to keys or breaking locks.
• "Scout": A spy, especially a police-spy.
• "Scrag": To be hanged. "Scragboy" means "hangman", "scragging-post" means "gallows", "scrag 'em Fair" is a public execution.
• "Scuffle-hunter": When goods are goods or landed upon the quais, shuffle-hunters make themselves readily available as porters by the day or hour. These lowest class of the community come prepared with long aprons, under which they may conceal what they pilfer; whereupon they disappear.
• "Scull": A typical oar usually pivots through an oar lock attached to the gunwale on the side of a boat. A scull (sometimes called a 'sweep oar') is a single oar mounted through a pivot point at the stern. The person who sculls often works the scull while standing.
• "Self-actors": Steam powered "self-acting" machines.
• "Seven and sixpenny green": The Customs duty on green tea was seven shillings and sixpence a pound.
• "Sewer-hunters": A sewer-hunter (or "tosher") was a scavenger, seeking in the sewers of London for jewelery or other objects that could be sold.
  Joseph Bazelgette designed and led the construction of London's modern sewer system (1866-1874). Until such a system of sewers were constructed, the residents of London (mostly impoverished) had to relieve themselves in streets, backyards and in the basements of buildings. Without a sewer system, effluvia washed into the Thames, only to be pumped back as drinking water. Without an intelligently designed system of sewers, outbreaks of Cholera were common. In this time frame, before a modern view of science that encompassed microbiology that could explain these health problems, the impoverished of London could only be victims. It was at this time that Dr. John Snow was able to use Voronoi maps to explain the cause of Cholera. Until John Snow, large cities like London were not only concentrations of abysmal poverty and crime, but also the centers of diseases such as Cholera. Sewer-hunters, mudlarks, etc. thus worked on the front lines and acted as unwitting vectors, spreading Cholera throughout London. As Henry Mayhew noted in his book "London Labour and the London Poor", vol. 3 in the section entitled "CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VARIOUS CLASSES OF VAGRANTS":   "The 'tramp-fever', as the most dangerous infection of the casual wards is significantly termed, is of a typhoid character, and seems to be communicated particularly to those who wash the clothes of the parties suffering from it. This was likewise one of the characteristics of cholera." Thus even the design of the workhouses lent itself to the spread of disease.
      "... the sanitation of the places I visited was wretched. From the imperfect sewage and drainage, defective traps, poor ventilation, dampness, and general foulness, I might expect my wife and babies speedily to be attacked by diptheria, croup, typhoid, erysipelas, blood poisoning, bronchitis, pneumonia, consumption, and various kindered disorders." Indeed, the statistics were grim: 55% of the children died before reaching the age of five. "The People of the Abyss", by Jack London.
• "Shakes-down": A temporary bed of cheap rag bedding (if the person was unable to buy a portion of a bed, such as a small child paying for an eighth of a bed for the night).
• "Shallow": A half-naked person (example: "A shallow chap.")
• "Shell": A wooden coffin (a rough or temporary coffin).
• "Shingle": A beach covered with small rounded stones.
• "Shoddy": Shoddy was also called "devil's dust" and was a cloth that had been reduced to fiber by a shredding machine called a "devil". Shoddy therefore normally referred to an adulterated fabric. Shoddy was manufactured for sale as opposed to use, because it was liable to tear or grow threadbare in a fortnight.
• "Short" or "Max" or "Gatter" or "Duke" or "Blue-ruin" or "Tape" or "Jackey": Terms commonly used for gin.
• "Shop": Referring to prison (workshop).
• "Sizar": One who receives a stipend or scholarship at a university.
• "Skilly" A watery gruel (typically served in a workhouse): three quarts of oatmeal to three and one-half buckets of water, but sometimes flour was substituted for the oatmeal. Spoons sometimes provided, with pannikins.
• "Skippering it": Sleeping in a barn, outhouse, shed, etc, often by orphaned children when outside of a city. Related, " free doss" or sleeping in the open (see "doss house").
• "Skittle-sharp": A "skittle-sharp" is a con man, sometimes called a "magsman". Like Three-Card-Monty, the skittle-sharp plays dishonest gambling games such as skittles and card games.
• "Slap-bang": A cheap eating-house. No credit accepted, payment made by slapping coins on the counter.
• "Slavey": A servant (used like a slave). A "moll slavey" was a female slavey.
• "Slip-room": A long, narrow room.
• "Slop-driver": Cab drivers hire at slop-drivers at reduced wages. When these slop-drivers discharge a customer from an omnibus or carriage, the slop-driver often intimidates or actually robs the customer. Later, if the customer calls the police, the rightful cab driver is contacted and cannot be identified. Thus, the slop-driver is in collusion with the cab driver.
• "Slop-shops": Shops that specialized in selling cheap (not made-to-fit) clothes and used clothes. These slop-shops specialized as in ordinary clothes, milinary shops, etc. There were specialized labourers, as in slop-shop tailors, etc.
• "Slued": To be drunk.
• "Smatter-hauler": Pickpocket who specializes in stealing (dirty) handkerchiefs.
• "Smiggens": Refers to the life of prisoners in such places as Newgate Prison on Hulks and those transported. For supper, if lucky, they had burgoo; on Meat days, the water in which beef was boiled, thickened with barley, forming what is called "smiggens". Sometimes, broth mixed with rice or maize.
• "Smouch": Derogatory, anti_semitic reference to Jews as theives.
• "Smudge": A burglar who enters a house quietly and hides under a bed waiting for a favorable opportunity to steal at leisure.
• "Smug": To cheat, steal, or smuggle.
• "Snakesman, little": 'A very small boy is carried by a gang of fellows in the dead of night to a house, the sink-hole of which they have already observed open. When this gang is pretty certain that the family is in bed, they dispatch their ambassador, the boy, or Little Snakes-Man to obtain their admittance. He turns, winds, and twists until he gets through, then opens the back-door and admits the whole gang, who immediately plunder the whole house. After the robbery is completed, the Little Snakesman fastens the door thro' which the gang have departed; and then turns, winds, and twists himself out in the same manner that he entered...  ... The censure is generally laid on the innocent yet unfortunate servant.' "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens depicts a "little snakesman". Also called a "figger".
• "Snavel": To steal by snatching while running.
• "Snide": Snide refers to counterfeit coins.
• "Snide-pitching": Snide-pitching means to "pass" counterfeit coins.
• "Snow-dropping" or "snow-gathering" or "snow-prigging": Stealing linen from hedges.
• "Snow-hunting" or "snow-sweeping": Stealing laundry from clothes lines.
• "Sodger": Soldier.
• "Sofa bed": People not well-off financially, living in an apartment that is small, attempt to make double use of their living space. This double use is accomplished by hiding a bed, or disguising a bed. The bed might be hidden in a wall-closet (commonly called a "Murphy bed"), or may fold up vertically against a wall, the visible side looking like a bookcase (commonly called a "Turnup bedstead"). Alternatively, a couch (or sofa) may convert into a bed (commonly called a "sofa bed"). In each case, the owner fears being categorized as not sufficiently wealthy, thus the desire to hide or disguise the bed or lack of adequate living space.
• "Soft": Counterfeit money.
• "Spank": To spank a glaze is to break a pane of glass in a shop window and make a sudden snatch at some article of value within your reach, and then run away. It is best if the thief has a chance previously to tie the shop door closed with a strong cord, to prevent the shop men from getting out, giving the theif time to escape.
• "Spatterdash": A "spatterdash" was long leather leggings worn in the 18th century, as to protect from mud when riding.
• "Spike": Refers to a workhouse.
• "Spill": A twisted piece of paper set alight at the fireplace, then used to light candles, cigars, etc.
• "Spiv": A petty crook who will turn his hand to anything so long as it does not involve honest work.
• "Split": To inform upon, or to "peach".
• "Sponging-house" or "Spunging-house": A sponging-house was a place of temporary confinement for debtors. If someone were to get into debt, their creditor would lay a complaint with the sheriff, the sheriff sent his bailiffs, and the debtor would be taken to the local sponging-house. This was not a debtor's prison, but a private house, often the bailiff's own home. If debtor could not pay his debts quickly, then he was brought to court and transferred to a debtor's prison. The idea of the sponging-house was based on that of the sponge which readily gives up its contents on being squeezed. Jewish anti-Semitic stereotypes placed Jews as proprietors of "sponging-houses", "old clo" men, money-lenders, and the secretly wealthy, the "Fagins" of society: criminals, thieves, and generally immoral.
       Montagu Williams, in "Down East and Up West", 1894, describes a sponging-house:
       "Ah, my dear fellow, you?ve never seen a sponging-house! Ye gods - what a place! I had an apartment they were pleased to call a bedroom to myself certainly, but if I wanted to breathe the air I had to do so in a cage in the back garden - iron bars all round, and about the size of one of the beast receptacles at the Zoo. For this luxury I had to pay two guineas a day. A bottle of sherry cost a guinea, a bottle of Bass half-a-crown, and food was upon the same sort of economical tariff."
• "Spout" or "Up the spout": The "spout" refers to the slang term for the lift in a pawnbroker's shop, up which articles were taken for storage. Thus the phrase "up the spout" means lost or hopeless.
• "Spring-gun": A gun used to guard against trespassers and concealed for this purpose. A spring-gun is discarged by someone coming in contact with a concealed wire attached to the trigger. Spring-guns were made illegal in England by an Act of Parliament in 1827.
• "Stall up": To stall a person up is a term used by pickpockets. It means to surround the person to be pickpocketed by a crowd of associates, who force the victim's arms up while they rifle his pockets at pleasure.
• "Stallsman": A term used by pickpockets. The stallsman is a pickpocket's accomplice whose purpose is to screen or obscure the actual pickpocket.
• "Stand-up collar": A collar that rises high, vertically, around the neck, as opposed to a "lay-down collar" that lies flat on the shirt.
• "Star": A star is a thief who cuts a pane of glass in a shop window (called starring the glaze), whereupon articles that can be reached by the thieves are removed through the window.
• "Starv'em, rob'em, and cheat'm": Stroud, Rochester, and Chatam. the honest opinion of the general attitude towards soldiers and sailors.
• "Stew": A brothel.
• "Stick-man": Two women, respectably dressed, meet a drunken man in the street; stop him and ask him to treat them. They adjourn to a pub. While drinking, one of the women tries to rob him of his watch or money. A man who is called a "stick-man", who is an accomplice (often a paramour), comes to the pub a short time after them. He orders something to drink and stands near them. Through various motions and signs between the two women and the stick-man, they signal if they have the stolen items. If they have the stolen items, the items are passed to the stick-man, who then slips away.
        In another variation, after the woman with the stolen goods has passed the goods to the stick-man, the women try to escape, but if the victim realizes that he has been robbed the stick-man then offers to go fetch a policeman. All the thieves disappear.
        Since no direct association is ever made between the stick-man and the women, should the women be apprehended the stolen goods are never discovered, so the case is dropped.
        The stick-man is called a "stick" man because he sticks by the women.
• "Stone jug": A gaol.
• "Stook-buzzing": A pickpocket that specializes in gentlemen's handerkerchiefs.
• "Straw-chipper": Straw-bonnet maker.
• "Straw-yard": Residences (dormitories or casual wards) for the night for the destitute and homeless. The origin is in the straw laid on the dormitory floors. See "union", or "workhouse".
• "Street-keeper": A porter who watched or held carriage horses in a given street.
• "Street-post": Posts sunk into the ground to guard against carriages mounting pedestrian crossings and also to tether horses. These posts were sometimes made from cannons, muzzel uppermost with a cannon ball cemented to the muzzel.
• "Stump" or "Stumpy": Money, or to pay. See "Sketches by Boz", Scenes, Chapter 16, Penguin reprint, 1995, p. 179
• "Sturiben": Prison.
• "Sup": To drink (from Old English word "suppen").
• "Surrey Side": The surrey side refers to the "south" side. In Victorian London, the surrey side of the Thames was where the docks were located, and their associated warehouses. Thus the "surrey side" also refers to an area known for its lower class.
• "Swag shop": Cheap clothing shop, mostly for stolen clothes.
• "Swag-Chovey bloke": Marine store dealer (fence). See "Chovey".
• "Sweated labour": Sweated labour referred to work done and paid for "by the piece", or what we refer to now as sweat-shop work. It not only referred to this kind of labour, but the environment found in sweat-shops: crowded work conditions in an environment in which laws were violated. A feeling of alienation and intimidation, long hours, anxiety of uncertainty as one's job might suddenly disappear without warning.
• "Sweepers [chimney] ": Sweepers cleaned chimneys, so did their children. Often covered in soot, rarely bathing more than once every six months, wearing the same clothes for an extended period of time. Bathing began to become more common after the introduction of public bathhouses. Clothes were washed more often after the creation of public washhouses. Related, see " climbing-boys".
• "Sweepers [of street crossings] ": The street crossing sweepers were mostly very young children, often orphans, or older people who were crippled. One of "her Majesty's ministers was curious as to what were the rights of property of crossing-sweepers that were stationed at the same crossing for years? The answer is that crossing-sweepers are under protection of the police. The policeman of a particular district will protect the original sweeper of the crossing from the intrusion of a rival. In fact, crossing-sweepers ask for permission of the police before assuming a station. If a crossing-sweeper is absent for a long time and another takes over the crossing and then the original sweeper reappears, the officer on duty will generally re-establish the original sweeper. Some of the inhabitants of the district pay a weekly sum to crossing-sweepers and new clothes on Christmas. It is said that crossing-sweepers are among the most honest of the London poor. Crossing sweepers say that without a good character and 'the respect of the neighborhood' there is not a living to be got out of the broom. In case of "infractions" or arguments about a crossing, the crossing-sweepers have established their own courts to settle disputes. Tips are of course greater during inclement weather, but brooms must be paid for and more are consummed during bad weather. To attract "customers", crossing-sweepers often are adept at "tumbling", meaning doing "cat'un-wheels", and running after omnibusses, alternating running with walking on their hands, bare feet in the air. These crossing-sweepers also rent a shovel and shovel snow away from store fronts during the winter. The crossing-sweepers sleep under bridges, on the steps of churches, and occasionally in doss houses.
        The character of Jo the crossing sweeper, in Charles Dickens' "Bleak House", is a fairly accurate portrait, except that crossing sweepers could often be crippled. Dickens does not emphasize the ability of crossing sweepers to 'tumble' in order to attract customers; it would have been interesting to experience a crossing sweeper 'court' in action – certainly it might have been a good example of justice.


• "Swell": A Gentleman, or a wealthy man: a "dandy". Also known as an "exquisite".
• "Swipes": Small beer, weak beer, beer of very poor quality. Sometimes referred to as "act of parliament".
• "Syllabubs": A beverage of wine, sugar, spices, mixed with fresh unpasteurized milk. Cows were kept in London.


Top
T
• "Tail-buzzer": A pickpocket specializing in snuff-boxes, purses, and pocketbooks.
• "Tagrag and bobtail": Rabble, lower-class people (derrogatory).
• "Taking a sight": A gesture with thumb on nose, middle three fingers closed, and the little finger wiggled and pointed to a person or group of people.
• "Talley-shop": Itinerant costermongers sold goods supplied on commission. As the costermongers were often illiterate, a "record" of their debts was kept as "notches" cut into a wooden "tally" board. Hence, a 'talley' was a contract in a physical form. A second function of the talley-shop was a place where a comparitively expensive item could be bought, similar to a "Christmas-club" today. A woman could buy a dress, keeping a talley: payments being talleyed up until the full price (plus interest) was paid.
• "Tap": To obtain money (by begging, pickpocketing, theft, etc.)
• "Tape" or "Short" or "Max" or "Gatter" or "Duke" or "Blue-ruin" or "Jackey": Terms commonly used for gin.
• "Tatler": A "tatler" is a watch.
• "Ten-Hour-a-day Bill": The "Chartist" movement was a movement that to some degree attempted real political and social change. Many of the Chartists were oriented towards revolutionary violence, while some Chartists were more idealistic and sought democratic change (through ballotting and parliamentary procedure). Factory workers (operators) worked long hours for low pay (sometimes referred to as "Yorkshire slavery") in an extremely dangerous workplace environment (accidents were quite common). Simultaneously, coal miners worked 12-, 24- and even 36-hour shifts. The coal-mining environment was also very dangerous due to shaft collapses and gas explosions. Both in the cloth manufacturing environment and in the mines, occupational diseases were common due to fiber particulate matter in the factories and coal dust in the mines. In both industries children and women and were employed, as a consequence their growth was stunted and their bones were bent, giving rise to a well-known crippled appearance. As capitalism at this time was almost totally unregulated (free trade and laissez-faire), there could be no amelioration of the working conditions. In some cases unions were formed and the response of the industrialists was to use the local government to oppose the unions and Chartists. These were not minor disturbances, as the Army was invoked, and even artillery was used!
  
  There were two primary interested ruling groups to be served which were to some degree opposed to each other. On one hand were the landed aristocracy which now included West Indian sugar plantation owners (owners of slaves). These landed interests wished to maintain the "Corn Laws" which limited free trade so as to maintain high prices of raw agricultural products. On the other hand, the cloth manufacturers basically opposed the Corn Laws as they were trying to minimize costs and thus wanted the food that the factory workers paid for to be as cheap as possible (so that pay to factory workers could be as small as possible). The reaction to the struggle between these two power groups was that the workers wanted to reduce their long work hours, and this led to the "Ten-Hour-a-Day" protests, a way to divert the more actively revolutionary views of the Chartists and the mining unions and general strikes that were beginning to take place with increasing frequency. The "Ten-Hour-a-Day" supporters were mostly idealistic sentimentalists and socialists of the type of Robert Owen, a cloth manufacturer with a factory in New Lenark. These socialists were utopians bent on a view that would not challenge the political organization of society. The result was the "Ten Hour Bill", which basically didn't change things very much from the viewpoint of the workers as there was really no serious attempt to enforce any improvements. In addition, the Tommy Shops still existed (weakly dealt with under the Truck Act) and the Cottage System still existed, and was used in an attempt to break the general strike of the radicalized coal workers in 1844.
• "Teviss": Professional vagrant.
• "Thimble": Refers to watches:
  1. "Thimble-screwer": stealing watches
  2. "Thimble-twister": stealing watches
• "Three-legged mare": A "three-legged mare" refers to a gallows.
• "Three-outs": A glass holding three-pennyworths (of gin and bitters). See "Sketches by Boz", Scenes, Chapter 5, footnote 9, Penguin reprint, 1995, p. 92, endnote, p. 594.
• "Three-penny upright": The expression "three-penny upright" refers to a woman that dispenses her favours standing upright against a wall, for three pennies.
• "Thunder-and-lightening buttons": Buttons made of two sharply contrasting colours.
• "Ticket-of-leave": A criminal was often "transported" to Australia. Such convicts were on some occasions permitted to enter areas of Australia usually off-limits to convicts. Once in Australia, such convicts were sometimes given a "ticket-of-leave" to enter these off-limit areas, but had to register upon entering these off-limit areas and upon registration with authorities were given a conditional pardon or parole.
• "Tiger": A groom of short stature, wearing livery that included a striped waistcoat.
• "Tile": A hat.
• "Time of day": Rhymes with "right way" meaning the right way to do something.
• "Tippet": A cape or shoulder and neck covering.
• "Toff": Gentleman (derrogatory).
• "Tommy": Food.
• "Tom-all-alone": Sections of London characterized by filth, contagion, poverty, crime. The people live lives of psychological depression, mental-illness, addiction: the mental states that match this environment. Slums. See housing and rookeries.
• "Tom-noddy": A fool.
• "Tommy-shop": Company store (where workers are required to buy, and the goods are at exhorbitant prices). This practice was outlawed by the Truck Act of 1831.
• "Tom and Jerry shop" or "Jerry shop": A beerhouse for the poor.
• "Tooling": Refers to a pickpocket.
• "Top-sawyer": An expert thief.
• "Toshers": People who scavenge in the sewers (sewer-hunters). Whole families scavenged in the sewers.
• "Tossing": "Tossing the Pie-man" meant betting by flipping a penny, with the pie-man calling heads or tails: a free pie if they won or handing over a penny without receiving a pie.
• "Tow": Loose, coarse flax fiber or "oakum" from used rope. Tow was created by convicts or inmates of workhouses.
• "Town-maders": Made in town, or made using a semi-automated process (division of labor) in a town; as opposed to being hand-constructed by a country farmer.
• "Trap": A police officer or "runner".
• "Travail": Same spelling as the French word, but mispronounced in English; and lulu", used in place of the French word "lieu" (often by lawyers ignorant of French). See also "Judy" ("David Copperfield"), instead of "jury", bob swore" ("David Copperfield"), for those who were ignorant of the French "bon soir" and "after David" (affadavit).
• "Trepanning": The entrapment of little girls with the purpose of making them into prostitutes.
• "Trotter-cases": "Trotter-cases" means boots or shoes.
• "Truck Act": The Truck Act of 1831 required that workers be paid in money and not in any other form; thus, Tommy Stores were made illegal. The reason for this is that payment in any other form might in fact not be equivalent. A Tommy Store (company store) sold goods at jacked-up prices, but the employee was forced to buy at these jacked-up prices (the price of goods was not a fair equivalent). Of course, the Truck Act was not enforced. For another similar practice, see the cottage system.
• "Tucker": A lace frill worn around the neck.
• "Tumbled": To be "discovered". For example, a family caught with several children during a "one-room lark".
• "Turnpike sailor": Beggars disguised as sailors.
• "Turnup bedstead": People not well-off financially, living in an apartment that is small, attempt to make double use of their living space. This double use is accomplished by hiding a bed, or disguising a bed. The bed might be hidden in a wall-closet (commonly called a "Murphy bed"), or may fold up vertically against a wall, the visible side looking like a bookcase (commonly called a "Turnup bedstead"). Alternatively, a couch (or sofa) may convert into a bed (commonly called a "sofa bed"). In each case, the owner fears being categorized as not sufficiently wealthy, thus the desire to hide or disguise the bed or lack of adequate living space.
• "Twig": To discern or discover someone's intentions.
• "Two pun' ten": Two shop assistants closely watch the ten fingers of a customer suspected of dishonesty.
• "Twopenn'orth of rope": Lodgers in a doss house are lined up on a bench and slump over a length of rope, using the rope for support. The cost for this "bed" is two pence a night. This is what is meant by 'twopenn'orth of rope'.
• "Two-relay system": As housing was expensive and places to sleep were difficult to find, a solution was found in the "two-relay system". This system meant that a bed could be paid for and used by two unrelated people, each paying for use of the bed. Thus one person might work nights, being away from 7PM until 7AM. During the night, one person rented and used the bed. After 7AM in the morning, the night worker returns and can now sleep from 7AM until 7PM. Three-way shifts also existed. Considering that in doss houses, a person might pay for use of part of a bed (for example, eight to a bed for small working children without parents), the "two-relay system" might be viewed as providing a great deal of luxurious privacy. People also slept under beds (a shortage of space, not just housing).

Top
U
• "Uncle", alternatively "Mother": Pawnbroker or fence.
• Units of currency:
  1. Quid
  2. Bender (6 penny piece, so thin that it could easily bend, hence a "bender")
  3. Bob ("hog")
  4. Half a "bull" is 2s, 6d
  5. Tanner ("brown")
  6. Ha'p'orth (half a penny's worth), sometimes a half-penny was called a "magpie"
  7. Penn'orth (penny's worth)
  8. Five pun' a year means five pounds a year
• "Universal staircase" or "everlasting staircase": A reference to the workhouse treadmill.
• "Union": A workhouse or place for the homeless to sleep. The homeless slept in the casual ward or tramp-room. Sometimes this is referred to as a "straw-yard". Workhouses contained treadmills used to pump water for the workhouse, but also as a form of punishment (see "oakum" for an elaboration). Men and women were segregated. The dormitories had beds composed of canvas, much as with a hammock. Workhouse staff often used extortion by not providing services to an inmate unless payed to do so (even though the staff were paid to provide said services). Workhouses were first created to fulfill the obligations of the "Poor Laws", but later "union" workhouses were created. In addition to workhouses, lunatic asylums and asylums for "imbeciles" were created. The costs of maintaining people in lunatic asylums and asylums for "imbeciles" were reduced by inmates often falling down stairs or out of windows. Who would believe a witness who said otherwise if the witness was an inmate of a lunatic asylum or an imbecile?
• "unmentionables": Trousers. Also called "inexplicables".
• "Up the spout" or "Spout": The "spout" refers to the slang term for the lift in a pawnbroker's shop, up which articles were taken for storage. Thus the phrase "up the spout" means lost or hopeless.

Top
V
• "Veskit": Waistcoat.
• "Vun": One, as in the Bard of Avon (Shakespeare).
• "Vurkis": Dialect: workhouse.

Top
W
• "Walk the barber": To take advantage of a woman sexually.
• "Wap": Sexual intercourse.
• "Wharfinger": Owner of a wharf.
• "Wash'us": Dialect: wash house.
• "Watchman's rattle": A "grogger" or a swing around noisemaker that made a ratchetting sound (before policemen).
• "Wax doll": Doll made of wax (pretty, but useless).
• "Wherry": A shallow, light river boat.
• "Whipster": A contemptible or insignificant person.
• "Wide-awake": A soft felt hat with a broad brim and low crown. The cloth of this kind of hat had no "nap"; thus, the hat was referred to as a "wide-awake".
• "Wine-vault": A pub.
• "Wipes": Handkerchiefs.
• "Wire": Pickpocket of women. A wire could also be a woman ("Moll wire").
• "Wool-hole": Workhouse.
• "Workhouse": A workhouse or place for the homeless to sleep (sometimes referred to as "Poor Law Bastilles"). The homeless slept in the casual ward or tramp-room. Sometimes this is referred to as a "straw-yard". Workhouses contained treadmills used to pump water for the workhouse as well as to fans (hence the term for using a treadmill was to "grind the wind"), but also as a form of punishment. Inmates of workhouses could also be required to break rocks, grind corn by hand, or work as hospital volunteers (often with patients dying from contagion), or scrubbing. Refusing to do such work would result in imprisonment. Men and women were segregated. The dormitories had beds composed of canvas, much as with a hammock. Workhouse staff often used extortion by not providing services to an inmate unless payed to do so (even though the staff were paid to provide said services). Workhouses were designed so that windows did not open towards the outside so that the workhouses would be asthetically depressing. Workhouses were first created to fulfill the obligations of the "Poor Laws", but later "union" workhouses were created. Even now in the twenty-first century, there are those that claim that workhouse conditions were not bad! It should be noted that the rate of orphan mortality in poorhouses was as high as 90% (see "Oliver Twist", by Charles Dickens", Penguin Books, ISBN-13: 978-0-141-43974-7, 2002, p. 487, note #2, Book the First, Chapter the Second.
  
        In addition to workhouses, lunatic asylums and asylums for "imbeciles" were created. The costs of maintaining people in lunatic asylums and asylums for "imbeciles" were reduced by inmates often falling down stairs or out of windows. Who would believe a witness who said otherwise if the witness was an inmate of a lunatic asylum or an imbecile?
  
        According to the views of Malthus, poor people could not truly be helped (and indeed, large numbers of poor died of starvation). To ensure that those people in the workhouses did not seek a pleasurable refuge, two descriptions might be illustrative:
  
        "In the workhouse at Greenwich, in the Summer of 1843, a boy five years old was punished by being shut into the deadroom, where he had to sleep upon the lids of the coffins." Thus was not an isolated incidence.
  
        "In the workhouse at Bacton, in Suffolk, in January 1844, a similar investigaton revealed the fact that a feeble-minded woman was employed as a nurse, and took care of the patients accordingly; while sufferers, who were often restless at night, or tried to get up, were tied fast with cords passed over the covering and under the beadstead, to save the nurses the trouble of sitting up at night. One patient was found dead, bound in this way."
  
        The New Poor Laws were successful, and were supported by Prime Minister Peel in 1844.

Top
Y
• "Younker": A boy.
Top

Charles Dickens
   "A Child's History of England", "Bleak House", "Great Expectations", "Little Dorrit", "Nicholas Nickleby", "Oliver Twist", "Our Mutual Friend", "Pickwick Papers", "Pictures From Italy", "Sketches by Boz".
      See also, a number of articles from "Household Words", Dickens' Letters, and "All the Year 'Round", including:
         "A Walk in a Workhouse", Household Words, May 25, 1850
         "A Coal Miner's Evidence", Household Words, December 7, 1850
         On Duty With Inspector Field", Household Words, June 14, 1851
         "Old Clothes", Household Words, April 17, 1852
         "A Plated Article", Household Words, April 24, 1852
         "Down With The Tide", Household Words, February 5, 1853
         "The Noble Savage", Household Words, June 11, 1853
         "Wigs", Household Words, July 28, 1855
         "Dickens' Letters", Vol. ii, p. 178, April 18, 1862
         "Wigs", All The Year 'Round, March 22, 1873 (posthumous)

Fredrich Engels, "The Condition of the Working Class in England"

J. Farmer and W. Henley, "A Dictionary of Slang and colloquial English" (abridged), Routledge & Sons, Ltd. 1921

Francis Gross, "The Vulgar Tongue: Buckish Slang and Pickpocket Eloquence", Summersdale Publishers Ltd., Chichester, West Sussex

Jack London, "The People of the Abyss"

Henry Mayhew, "London Labour and the London Poor"

Harland S. Nelson, "Dickens's OUR MUTUAL FRIEND and Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor", Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 20, #3, Dec. 1965

George Orwell, "Down The Mine", in "The Road To Wigan Pier", Left Book Club, London, England, 1937

Eric Partridge, "A Dictionary of the Underworld", MacMillan Company, New York, 1950

"The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary"