A New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language - James Hardy Vaux (best books for students to read TXT) 📗
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POST, or POST THE PONEY. To stake, or lay down the money, as on laying a
bet, or concluding a bargain.
POUNDABLE. Any event which is considered certain or inevitable, is
declared to be poundable, as the issue of a game, the success of a bet,
etc.
POUND IT. To ensure or make a certainty of any thing; thus, a man will
say, I’ll pound it to be so; taken, probably from the custom of laying,
or rather offering ten pounds to a crown at a cockmatch, in which case,
if no person takes this extravagant odds, the battle is at an end. This
is termed pounding a cock.
PRAD. A horse.
PRADBACK. Horseback.
PRIG. A thief.
PRIG. To steal; to go out a-prigging, is to go a-thieving.
PRIME. In a general sense, synonymous with plummy; any thing very good of
its kind, is called a prime article. Any thing executed in a stylish or
masterly manner, is said to be done in prime twig. See FAKEMENT, and
GAMMON THE TWELVE.
PULL. An important advantage possessed by one party over another; as in
gaming, you may by some slight, unknown to your adversary, or by a
knowledge of the cards, etc., have the odds of winning considerably on
your side; you are then said to have a great pull. To have the power of
injuring a person, by the knowledge of any thing erroneous in his
conduct, which leaves his character or personal safety at your mercy, is
also termed having a pull upon him, that is (to use a vulgar phrase) that
you have him under your thumb. A person speaking of any intricate affair,
or feat of ingenuity, which he cannot comprehend, will say, There is some
pull at the bottom of it, that I’m not fly to.
PULL, or PULL UP: to accost; stop; apprehend; or take into custody; as to
pull up a Jack, is to stop a post-chaise on the highway. To pull a man,
or have him pulled, is to cause his apprehension for some offence; and it
is then said, that Mr. Pullen is concerned.
PULLED, PULLED UP, or IN PULL: Taken in custody; in confinement.
PUSH: a crowd or concourse of people, either in the streets, or at any
public place of amusement, etc., when any particular scene of crowding
is alluded to, they say, the push, as the push, at the spell doors; the
push at the stooping-match, etc.
PUT DOWN. See DOWN.
PUT FLASH. See FLASH.
PUT FLY. See FLY.
PUT UP: to suggest to another, the means of committing a depredation, or
effecting any other business, is termed, putting him up to it.
PUT UP AFFAIR: any preconcerted plan or scheme to effect a robbery,
etc., undertaken at the suggestion of another person, who possessing a
knowledge of the premises, is competent to advise the principal how best
to proceed.
PUTTER UP: the projector or planner of a put-up affair, as a servant in a
gentleman’s family, who proposes to a gang of housebreakers the robbery
of his master’s house, and informs them where the plate, etc., is
deposited, (instances of which are frequent in London) is termed the
putter up, and usually shares equally in the booty with the parties
executing, although the former may lie dormant, and take no part in the
actual commission of the fact.
PUZZLING-STICKS: the triangles to which culprits are tied up, for the
purpose of undergoing flagellation.
Q. See LETTER Q.
QUEER: bad; counterfeit; false; unwell in health.
QUEER, or QUEER-BIT: base money.
QUEER SCREENS: forged Bank-notes.
QUEER IT: to spoil it, which see.
QUEER-BAIL. Persons of no repute, hired to bail a prisoner in any
bailable case; these men are to be had in London for a trifling sum, and
are called Broomsticks.
QUID: a guinea.
QUOD: a gaol. To quod a person is to send him to gaol. In quod, is in
gaol.
QUOD-COVE: the keeper of a gaol.
QUODDING-DUES. See DUES.
RACKET: some particular kinds of fraud and robbery are so termed, when
called by their flash titles, and others Rig; as, the Letter-racket, the
Order-racket; the Kid-rig; the Cat and Kitten-rig, etc., but all these
terms depend upon the fancy of the speaker. In fact, any game may be
termed a rig, racket, suit, slum, etc., by prefixing thereto the
particular branch of depredation or fraud in question, many examples of
which occur in this work.
RAG: money.
RAG-GORGY: a rich or monied man, but generally used in conversation when
a particular gentleman, or person high in office, is hinted at; instead
of mentioning his name, they say, the Rag-gorgy, knowing themselves to be
understood by those they are addressing. See COVE, and SWELL.
RAMP: to rob any person or place by open violence or suddenly snatching
at something and running off with it, as, I ramp’d him of his montra; why
did you not ramp his castor? etc. A man convicted of this offence, is
said to have been done for a ramp. This audacious game, is called by
prigs, the ramp, and is nearly similar to the RUSH, which see.
RANK: complete; absolute, downright, an emphatical manner of describing
persons or characters, as a rank nose, a rank swell, etc. etc.
RATTLER: a coach.
READER: a pocket-book.
READER-HUNTERS. See DUMMY-HUNTERS.
REGULARS: one’s due share of a booty, etc. on a division taking place.
Give me my regulars, that is, give me my dividend.
REIGN: the length or continuance of a man’s career in a system of
wickedness, which when he is ultimately bowled out, is said to have been
a long, or a short reign, according to its duration.
RESURRECTION-COVE: a stealer of dead bodies.
RIBBAND: money in general.
RIDGE: gold, whether in coin or any other shape, as a ridge montra, a
gold watch; a cly-full of ridge, a pocket full of gold.
RIG. See RACKET.
RINGING, or RINGING-IN: to ring is to exchange; ringing the changes, is a
fraud practised by smashers, who when they receive good money in change
of a guinea, etc., ring-in one or more pieces of base with great
dexterity, and then request the party to change them.
RINGING CASTORS: signifies frequenting churches and other public
assemblies, for the purpose of changing hats, by taking away a good, and
leaving a shabby one in its place; a petty game now seldom practised.
RISE THE PLANT. See PLANT.
ROCK’D: superannuated, forgetful, absent in mind; old lags are commonly
said to be thus affected, probably caused by the sufferings they have
undergone.
ROLLERS: horse and foot patrole, who parade the roads round about London
during the night, for the prevention of robberies.
ROMANY: a gypsy; to patter romany, is to talk the gypsy flash.
ROOK: a small iron crow.
ROUGH-FAM, or ROUGH-FAMMY: the waistcoat pocket.
ROW IN THE BOAT: to go snacks, or have a share in the benefit arising
from any transaction to which you are privy. To let a person row with
you, is to admit him to a share.
RUFFLES. Handcuffs.
RUGGINS’S: to go to bed, is called going to Ruggins’s.
RUM: good, in opposition to queer.
RUMBLE-TUMBLE: a stage-coach.
RUMP’D: flogged or scourged.
RUMPUS: a masquerade.
RUSH: the rush, is nearly synonymous with the ramp; but the latter often
applies to snatching at a single article, as a silk cloak, for instance,
from a milliner’s shop-door; whereas a rush may signify a forcible entry
by several men into a detached dwelling-house for the purpose of robbing
its owners of their money, etc. A sudden and violent effort to get into
any place, or vice-versa to effect your exit, as from a place of
confinement, etc., is called rushing them, or giving it to ‘em upon the
rush.
RUSSIAN COFFEE-HOUSE: a name given by some punster of the family, to the
Brown Bear public-house in Bow-street, Covent-garden.
SACK: a pocket; to sack any thing is to pocket it.
SALT-BOXES: the condemned cells in Newgate are so called.
SALT-BOX-CLY: the outside coat-pocket, with a flap.
SAND: moist sugar.
SAWNEY: bacon.
SCAMP: the game of highway robbery is called the scamp. To scamp a person
is to rob him on the highway. Done for a scamp signifies convicted of a
highway robbery.
SCAMP, or SCAMPSMAN: a highwayman.
SCHOOL: a party of persons met together for the purpose of gambling.
SCOT: a person of an irritable temper, who is easily put in a passion,
which is often done by the company he is with, to create fun; such a one
is declared to be a fine scot. This diversion is called getting him out,
or getting him round the corner, from these terms being used by
bull-hankers, with whom also a scot is a bullock of a particular breed,
which affords superior diversion when hunted.
SCOTTISH: fiery, irritable, easily provoked.
SCOUT: a watchman.
SCOUT-KEN: a watch-house.
SCRAG’D: hang’d.
SCRAGGING-POST: the gallows.
SCREEN: a bank-note.
SCREEVE: a letter, or writing paper.
SCREW: a skeleton or false key. To screw a place is to enter it by false
keys; this game is called the screw. Any robbery effected by such means
is termed a screw.
SCREWSMAN: a thief who goes out a screwing.
SCURF’D: taken in custody.
SEEDY: poor, ragged in appearance, shabby.
SELL: to sell a man is to betray him, by giving information against him,
or otherwise to injure him clandestinely for the sake of interest, nearly
the same as bridgeing him. (See BRIDGE.) A man who falls a victim to any
treachery of this kind, is said to have been sold like a bullock in
Smithfield.
SERVE: to serve a person, or place, is to rob them; as, I serv’d him for
his thimble, I rob’d him of his watch; that crib has been served before,
that shop has been already robbed, etc. To serve a man, also sometimes
signifies to maim, wound, or do him some bodily hurt; and to serve him
out and out, is to kill him.
SHAKE: to steal, or rob; as, I shook a chest of slop, I stole a chest of
tea; I’ve been shook of my skin, I have been robbed of my purse. A thief,
whose pall has been into any place for the purpose of robbery, will say
on his coming out, Well, is it all right, have you shook? meaning, did
you succeed in getting any thing? When two persons rob in company, it is
generally the province, or part, of one to shake, (that is, obtain the
swagg), and the other to carry, (that is, bear it to a place of safety).
SHALLOW: a hat.
SHAN: counterfeit money in general.
SHARP: a gambler, or person, professed in all the arts of play; a cheat,
or swindler; any cross-cove, in general, is called a sharp, in opposition
to a flat, or square-cove; but this is only in a comparative sense in the
course of conversation.
SHARPING: swindling and cheating in all their various forms, including
the arts of fraud at play.
SHIFTER: an alarm, or intimation, given by a thief to his pall,
signifying that there is a down, or that some one is approaching, and
that he had, therefore, better desist from what he is about.
SHINER: a looking-glass.
SHOOK: synonymous with rock’d.
SHOVE-UP: nothing.
SHUTTER-RACKET: the practice of robbing houses, or shops, by boring a
hole in the window shutter, and taking out a pane
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