Slang
fetters,
double-slanged if both legs locked in chains
Slung
thrown
into Newgate, the stone jug, for your pains
Rook
stealing
like a brazen, black bird of thieving nature
Rake
a
wastrel and pisspot affecting to cut a figure
Cull
a
simpleton that pays for favours given
Cell
a
stone cubby, dark and damp, with iron bars riven
Whit
where
the Newgate nightingale sings high pitch
Whet
as
if keening the blade to stick the snitch
Chive
filing
away or sawing through chains and ring-bolts
Chafe
scars
and sores rubbed black and blue by bracelets
Spell
wasting
away in the lock-up, doing time ill-spent
Spiel
gaming
at cards, dice, prick the girdle . . . Repent!
Hull
the
cull’s shell rotting in some rank hell-hole
Hulk
whose
creaking bulk stores vermin in its hold
Flog
striping
skin to saltback for bolters sought at large
Flag
shaking
your fist in defiance at blackguards and lobsters in charge
Heap
ropeable measures of a
prig’s misfortune
Hope
a lag’s vain pleas for
mercy to importune
Sneak
a boman prig showing off
brain rather than brawn
Snake
a dissembling varlet, a
sham Abraham, himself finally shorn
Lurk
extorting money by false
pretences, going on a racket
Lark
a frolic or game or rum
fraud to cop a packet
Sweat
clipping coins for gold
dust with nimble hooks
Sweet
a honey-tongued forger
of queer screens cooking the books
Bind
making fast
the beak’s law or debt or shackles
Bound
destined to
bolt-in-tun with raised hackles
Mab
a covey of
slatterns working Covent Garden and Drury Lane
Mob
among
rabblings top dogs snarl and reign
Pop
a
pistol flashed by a prigger of prancers on the gallop
Pup
a
young popinjay with the affected airs of a fop
Croak
giving your
dying speech from the crooked tree
Choke
breaking the
neck, the hangman's quinsy
Michael
Small
August 23-28,
2014
