LITMIR.BIZ

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vulgar piquancy to a joke, or relish to an exceedingly familiar conversation. The references and authorities given in italics frequently show only the direction or probable source of the etymology. The author, to avoid tedious verbiage, was obliged, in so small a work, to be curt in his notes and suggestions.

      He has to explain also that a few words will, probably, be noticed in the Slang and Cant Dictionary that are questionable as coming under either of those designations. These have been admitted because they were originally either vulgar terms, or the compiler had something novel to say concerning them. The makers of our large dictionaries have been exceedingly crotchety in their choice of what they considered respectable words. It is amusing to know that Richardson used the word HUMBUG to explain the sense of other words, but omitted it in the alphabetical arrangement as not sufficiently respectable and ancient. The word SLANG, too, he served in the same way.

      Filthy and obscene words have been carefully excluded, although street-talk, unlicensed and unwritten, abounds in these.

      “Immodest words admit of no defence,

      For want of decency is want of sense.”

      It appears from the calculations of philologists, that there are 38,000 words in the English language, including derivations. I believe I have, for the first time, in consecutive order, added at least 3,000 words to the previous stock, – vulgar and often very objectionable, but still terms in every-day use, and employed by thousands. It is not generally known, that the polite Lord Chesterfield once desired Dr. Johnson to compile a Slang Dictionary; indeed, it was Chesterfield, some say, who first used the word HUMBUG. Words, like peculiar styles of dress, get into public favour, and come and go in fashion. When great favourites and universal they truly become household words, although generally considered slang, when their origin or antecedents are inquired into.

      A few errors of the press, I am sorry to say, may be noticed; but, considering the novelty of the subject, and the fact that no fixed orthography of vulgar speech exists, it will, I hope, be deemed a not uninteresting essay on a new and very singular branch of human inquiry; for, as Mayhew remarks, “the whole subject of cant and slang is, to the philologist, replete with interest of the most profound character.”

      The compiler will be much obliged by the receipt, through Mr. Camden Hotten, the publisher, of any cant, slang, or vulgar words not mentioned in the dictionary. The probable origin, or etymology, of any fashionable or unfashionable vulgarism, will also be received by him with thanks.

      Piccadilly, June 30th, 1859.

      THE HISTORY OF CANT, OR, THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF VAGABONDS

      Cant and Slang are universal and world-wide.

      Nearly every nation on the face of the globe, polite and barbarous, may be divided into two portions, the stationary and the wandering, the civilised and the uncivilised, the respectable and the scoundrel, – those who have fixed abodes and avail themselves of the refinements of civilisation, and those who go from place to place picking up a precarious livelihood by petty sales, begging, or theft. This peculiarity is to be observed amongst the heathen tribes of the southern hemisphere, as well as the oldest and most refined countries of Europe. As Mayhew very pertinently remarks, “it would appear, that not only are all races divisible into wanderers and settlers, but that each civilised or settled tribe has generally some wandering horde intermingled with, and in a measure preying upon it.” In South Africa, the naked and miserable Hottentots are pestered by the still more abject Sonquas; and it may be some satisfaction for us to know that our old enemies at the Cape, the Kafirs, are troubled with a tribe of rascals called Fingoes, – the former term, we are informed by travellers, signifying beggars, and the latter wanderers and outcasts. In South America, and among the islands of the Pacific, matters are pretty much the same. Sleek and fat rascals, with not much inclination towards honesty, fatten, or rather fasten, like body insects, upon other rascals, who would be equally sleek and fat but for their vagabond dependents. Luckily for respectable persons, however, vagabonds, both at home and abroad, show certain outward peculiarities which distinguish them from the great mass of lawful people off whom they feed and fatten. Personal observation, and a little research into books, enable me to mark these external traits. The wandering races are remarkable for the development of the bones of the face, as the jaws, cheek-bones, &c., high crowned, stubborn-shaped heads, quick restless eyes,1 and hands nervously itching to be doing;2 for their love of gambling, – staking their very existence upon a single cast; for sensuality of all kinds; and for their use of a CANT language with which to conceal their designs and plunderings.

      The secret jargon, or rude speech, of the vagabonds who hang upon the Hottentots is termed cuze-cat. In Finland, the fellows who steal seal skins, pick the pockets of bear-skin overcoats, and talk Cant, are termed Lappes. In France, the secret language of highwaymen, housebreakers, and pickpockets is named Argot. The brigands and more romantic rascals of Spain, term their private tongue Germania, or Robbers’ Language. Rothwalsch, or Red Italian, is synonymous with Cant and thieves’ talk in Germany. The vulgar dialect of Malta, and the Scala towns of the Levant – imported into this country and incorporated with English cant – is known as the Lingua Franca, or bastard Italian. And the crowds of lazy beggars that infest the streets of Naples and Rome, and the brigands that Albert Smith used to describe near Pompeii – stopping a railway train, and deliberately rifling the pockets and baggage of the passengers – their secret language is termed Gergo. In England, as we all know, it is called Cant– often improperly Slang.

      Most nations, then, may boast, or rather lament, a vulgar tongue, formed principally from the national language, the hereditary property of thieves, tramps, and beggars, – the pests of civilised communities. The formation of these secret tongues vary, of course, with the circumstances surrounding the speakers. A writer in Notes and Queries,3 has well remarked, that “the investigation of the origin and principles of Cant and Slang language opens a curious field of enquiry, replete with considerable interest to the philologist and the philosopher. It affords a remarkable instance of lingual contrivance, which, without the introduction of much arbitrary matter, has developed a system of communicating ideas, having all the advantages of a foreign language.”

      An inquiry into the etymology of foreign vulgar secret tongues, and their analogy with that spoken in England, would be curious and interesting in the extreme, but neither present space nor personal acquirements permit of the task, and therefore the writer confines himself to a short account of the origin of English Cant.

      The terms CANT and CANTING were doubtless derived from chaunt or chaunting, – the “whining tone, or modulation of voice adopted by beggars, with intent to coax, wheedle, or cajole by pretensions of wretchedness.”4 For the origin of the other application of the word CANT, pulpit hypocrisy, we are indebted to a pleasant page in the Spectator (No. 147): – “Cant is by some people derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a Presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who by exercise and use had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the pulpit in such a dialect that ’tis said he was understood by none but his own congregation, – and not by all of them. Since Master Cant’s time it has been understood in a larger sense, and signifies all exclamations, whinings, unusual tones, and, in fine, all praying and preaching like the unlearned of the Presbyterians.” This anecdote is curious, if it is not correct. It was the custom in Addison’s time to have a fling at the blue Presbyterians, and the mention made by Whitelocke of Andrew Cant, a fanatical Scotch preacher, and the squib upon the same worthy, in Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed, may probably have started the whimsical etymology. As far as we are concerned, however, in the present inquiry, CANT was derived from chaunt, a beggar’s whine; CHAUNTING being the recognised term amongst beggars to this day for begging orations and street whinings; and CHAUNTER, a street talker and tramp, the very term still used by strollers and patterers. The use of the word CANT, amongst beggars, must certainly have commenced at a very early date, for we find “TO CANTE, to speake,” in Harman’s list of Rogues’

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