Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] Part 28

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]