Argot and Slang. Albert Barrere

unlucky criminal may thus be described in his own picturesque but awful language. The “pègre” (thief), or “escarpe” (murderer), who has been imprudent enough to allow himself to be “paumé marron” (caught in the act) whilst busy effecting a “choppin” (theft), or committing the more serious offence of “faire un gas à la dure” (to rob with violence), using the knife when “lavant son linge dans la saignante” (murdering), or yet the summary process of breaking into a house and killing all the inmates, “faire une maison entière,” will probably be taken by “la rousse” (police), first of all before the “quart d’œil” (police magistrate), from whose office he will be conveyed to the dépôt in the “panier à salade” (prison van), having perhaps in the meanwhile spent a night in the “violon” (cells at the police station). In due time he will be brought into the presence of a very inquisitive person, the “curieux,” who will do his utmost to pump him, “entraver dans ses flanches,” or make him reveal his accomplices, “manger le morceau,” or, again, to say all he knows about the affair, “débiner le truc.” From two to six months after this preliminary examination, he will be brought into the awful presence of the “léon” (president of assize court), at the “carré des gerbes,” where he sits in his red robes, administering justice. Now, suffering from a violent attack of “fièvre” (charge), the prisoner puts all his hopes in his “parrains d’altèque” (witnesses for the defence), and in his “médecin” (counsel), who will try whether a “purgation” (speech for the defence) will not cure him of his ailment, especially should he have an attack of “redoublement de fièvre” (new charge). Should the medicine be ineffectual, and the “hésiteurs opinants” (jurymen) have pronounced against him, he leaves the “planche au pain” (bar) to return whence he came, to the “hôpital” (prison), which he will only leave when “guéri” (free). But should he be “un cheval de retour” (old offender), he will probably be given a free passage to go “se laver les pieds dans le grand pré” (be transported) to “La Nouvelle” (New Caledonia), or “Cayenne les Eaux;” or, worse still, he may be left for some time in the “boîte au sel” (condemned cell) at La Roquette, attired in a “ligotante de rifle” (strait waistcoat), attended by a “mouton” (spy), who tries to get at his secrets, and now and then receiving the exhortations of the “ratichon” (priest). At an early hour one morning he is apprised by the “maugrée” (director) that he is to suffer the penalty of the law. After “la toilette” by “Charlot” (cutting off the hair by the executioner), he is assisted to the “Abbaye de Monte-à-regret” (guillotine), where, after the “sanglier” (priest) has given him a final embrace, the “soubrettes de Charlot” (executioner’s assistants) seize him, and make him play “à la main chaude” (hot cockles). Charlot pulls a string, when the criminal is turned into “un bœuf” (is executed) by being made to “éternuer dans le son” (guillotined). His “machabée” (remains) is then taken to the “champ de navets” (cemetery).

      For the following I am indebted to the courtesy of the Rev. J. W. Horsley, Chaplain to H. M. Prison, Clerkenwell, who, in his highly interesting Prison Notes makes the following remarks on thieves’ slang: “It has its antiquity, as well as its vitality and power of growth and development by constant accretion; in it are preserved many words interesting to the student of language, and from it have passed not a few words into the ordinary stock of the Queen’s English. Of multifold origin, it is yet mainly derived from Romany or gipsy talk, and thereby contains a large Eastern element, in which old Sanscrit roots may readily be traced. Many of these words would be unintelligible to ordinary folk, but some have passed into common speech. For instance, the words bamboozle, daddy, pal (companion or friend), mull (to make a mull or mess of a thing), bosh (from the Persian), are pure gipsy words, but have found some lodging, if not a home, in our vernacular. Then there are survivals (not always of the fittest) from the tongue of our Teutonic ancestors, so that Dr. Latham, the philologist, says: ‘The thieves of London’ (and he might still more have said the professional tramps) ‘are the conservators of Anglo-Saxonisms.’ Next, there are the cosmopolitan absorptions from many a tongue. From the French bouilli we probably get the prison slang term ‘bull’ for a ration of meat. Chat, thieves’ slang for house, is obviously château. Steel, the familiar name for Coldbath Fields Prison, is an appropriation and abbreviation of Bastille; and he who ‘does a tray’ (serves three months’ imprisonment) therein, borrows his word from our Gallican neighbours. So from the Italian we get casa for house, filly (figlia) for daughter, donny (donna) for woman, and omee (uomo) for man. The Spanish gives us don, which the universities have not despised as a useful term. From the German we get durrynacker, for a female hawker, from dorf, ‘a village,’ and nachgehen, ‘to run after.’ From Scotland we borrow duds, for clothes, and from the Hebrew shoful, for base coin.

      “Considering that in the manufacture of the domestic and social slang of nicknames or pet names not a little humour or wit is commonly found, it might be imagined that thieves’ slang would be a great treasure-house of humorous expression. That this is not the case arises from the fact that there is very little glitter even in what they take for gold, and that their life is mainly one of miserable anxiety, suspicion, and fear; forced and gin-inspired is their merriment, and dismal, for the most part, are their faces when not assuming an air of bravado, which deceives not even their companions. Some traces of humour are to be found in certain euphemisms, such as the delicate expression ‘fingersmith’ as descriptive of a trade which a blunt world might call that of a pickpocket. Or, again, to get three months’ hard labour is more pleasantly described as getting thirteen clean shirts, one being served out in prison each week. The tread-wheel, again, is more politely called the everlasting staircase, or the wheel of life, or the vertical case-grinder. Penal servitude is dignified with the appellation of serving Her Majesty for nothing; and even an attempt is made to lighten the horror of the climax of a criminal career by speaking of dying in a horse’s nightcap, i.e., a halter.”

      The English public schools, but especially the military establishments, seem to be not unimportant manufacturing centres for slang. Only a small proportion, however, of the expressions coined there appear to have been adopted by the general slang-talking public, as most are local terms, and can only be used at their own birthplace. The same expressions in some cases have a totally different signification according to the places where they are in vogue. Thus gentlemen cadets at the “Shop,” i.e., the Royal Military Academy, will talk of the doctor as being the “skipper,” whereas elsewhere “skipper” has the signification of master, head of an establishment. The expression “tosh,” meaning bath, seems to have been imported by students from Eton, Harrow, and Charterhouse, to the “Shop,” where “to tosh” means to bathe, to wash, but also to toss an obnoxious individual into a cold bath, advantage being taken of his being in full uniform. Another expression connected with the forced application of cold water at the above establishment is termed “chamber singing” at Eton, a penalty enforced on the new boys of singing a song in public, with the alternative (according to the Everyday Life in our Public Schools of C. E. Pascoe) of drinking a nauseous mixture of salt and beer; the corresponding penalty on the occasion of the arrival of unfortunate “snookers” at the R. M. Academy used to consist some few years ago of splashing them with cold water and throwing wet sponges at their heads, when they could not or would not contribute some ditty or other to the musical entertainment.

      “Extra” at Harrow is a punishment which consists of writing out grammar for two and a half hours under the supervision of a master. The word extra at the “Shop” already mentioned is corrupted into “hoxter.” The hoxter consists in the painful ordeal of being compelled to turn out of bed at an early hour, and march up and down with full equipment under the watchful eye of a corporal. Again, we have here the suggestive terms: “greasers,” for fried potatoes; “squish,” for marmalade; “whales,” for sardines; “vaseline,” for honey; “grass,” for vegetables; and to be “roosted” is to be placed under arrest; whilst “to q.” means to qualify at the term examination. Here a man who is vexed or angry “loses his shirt” or his “hair;”