Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] - LightNovelsOnl.com
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V.
Each cove vos teared with double duty, To please his backers, yet play booty, [9]
Ven, luckily for Jem, a teller Vos planted right upon his smeller [10]
Down dropped he, stunned; ven time was called Seconds in vain the seconds bawled; The mill is o'er, the crosser crost, The losers von, the vinners lost.
[1: fight]
[2: money]
[3: man]
[4: stripped]
[5: fellow]
[6: Notes]
[7: hands]
[8: blood]
[9: deceive them]
[10: nose]
THE THIEVES' CHAUNT [Notes]
[1836]
(By W. H. SMITH in _The Individual_)
I
There is a nook in the boozing ken, [1]
Where many a mug I fog, [2]
And the smoke curls gently, while cousin Ben Keeps filling the pots again and again, If the coves have stump'd their hog. [3]
II
The liquors around are diamond bright, And the diddle is best of all; [4]
But I never in liquors took delight, For liquors I think is all a bite, [5]
So for heavy wet I call. [6]
III
The heavy wet in a pewter quart, As brown as a badger's hue, More than Bristol milk or gin, [7]
Brandy or rum, I tipple in, With my darling blowen, Sue. [8]
IV
Oh! grunting peck in its eating [9]
Is a richly soft and savoury thing; A Norfolk capon is jolly grub [10]
When you wash it down with strength of bub: [11]
But dearer to me Sue's kisses far, Than grunting peck or other grub are, And I never funks the lambskin men, [12]
When I sits with her in the boozing ken.
V
Her duds are bob--she's a kinchin crack, [13]
And I hopes as how she'll never back; For she never lushes dog's-soup or lap, [14]
But she loves my cousin the bluffer's tap. [15]
She's wide-awake, and her prating cheat, [16 ]
For humming a cove was never beat; [17]
But because she lately nimm'd some tin, [18]
They have sent her to lodge at the King's Head Inn. [19]
[1: public house]
[2: pipe; smoke]
[3: paid a s.h.i.+lling ]
[4: gin]
[5: humbug]
[6: porter]
[7: sherry]
[8: mistress]
[9: pork]
[10: red-herring]
[11: lots of beer]
[12: judges]
[13: clothes; neat; fine young woman]
[14: drinks water or tea]
[15: inn-keeper]
[16: tongue]
[17: fooling a man]
[18: stole; money]
[19: Newgate; Notes]
THE HOUSE BREAKER'S SONG [Notes]
[c. 1838]
[By G. W. M. REYNOLDS in _Pickwick Abroad_].
I
I ne'er was a nose, for the reg'lars came [1]
Whenever a pannie was done:-- [2]
Oh! who would chirp to dishonour his name, And betrays his pals in a nibsome game [3]
To the traps?--Not I for one! [4]
Let n.o.bs in the fur trade hold their jaw, [5]
And let the jug be free:-- [6]
Let Davy's dust and a well-faked claw [7]
For fancy coves be the only law, [8]
