Game – brave
Grass – informant
Growler – type of cab, larger than hansom, for up to four people. (Actual name: Clarence cab)
Gull – to cheat or con
Irish Row – a fight; when a row spills over into a fist fight. Esp. a faction fight
Ivories – teeth
Jug – prison
Kidsman – trainer of child thieves
Life-preserver – form of cosh consisting of leather strap with heavy metal ball on the end, also covered in leather
Lorgnette – spectacles with handle for holding to eyes
Lucifer – a match
Magsman – an inferior burglar; conman, street swindler
Maltooling – picking pockets on a bus
Mother’s Blessing – laudanum or other mixture to keep babies quiet
Mudlarks – scrabblers for discarded materials on river-banks
Napper – head
Palanquin – a covered litter carried on poles by four men
Peace warrant – arrest warrant
Peterman – safe breaker
Phizog – face
Physic – medicine
Plucky – courageous, “a plucky one”
Quodded – imprisoned
Rookeries – slums
Scarletina – alternative name for scarlet fever
Smasher – utterer of base coin
Swell mob – conmen and pickpockets dressed as gents who worked theatres, race meetings and other gatherings
Copyright
© Martyn Beardsley 2012
First published in Great Britain 2012
This edition 2013
ISBN 978 0 7198 1065 7 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1066 4 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1067 1 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0704 6 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Martyn Beardsley to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988