GRUNTER, a hog, also a shilling; to grunt, to groan, or
complain of sickness.
GRUNTINGPECK, pork, bacon, or any kind of hog's flesh.
GUDGEON, one easily imposed on; to gudgeon, to swallow
the bait, or fall into a trap, from the fish of that name,
which is easily taken.

GULL, a simple credulous fellow, easily cheated.
GULLED, deceived, cheated, imposed on.

GULLGROPERS, usurers who lend money to the gamesters. GUM, abusive language; come, let us have no more of your gum.

GUMMEY, clumsey, particularly applied to the ancles of men, or women, and the legs of horses.

GUMPTION, or RUM GUMPTION, docility, comprehension, capacity.

GUNDIGUTS, a fat pursy fellow.

GUNNER'S DAUGHTER, to kiss the gunner's daughter, to

be tied to a gun and flogged on the posteriors; a mode of punishing boys on board a ship of war.

GUN, he's in the gun, he is drunk, perhaps from an allusion to a vessel called a gun, used for ale in the universities. GUNPOWDER; an old woman (cant).

GUTFOUNDERED, exceeding hungry; my great guts are

ready to eat my little ones, my guts begin to think my throat's cut.

GUTS AND GARBAGE, a very fat man or woman; more guts than brains, a silly fellow.

GUTTING A QUART POT, taking out the lining of it, i. e. drinking it off; gutting an oyster, eating it; gutting a house, clearing it of its furniture.

GUT SCRAPER, or TORMENTOR OF CATGUT, a fidler.

GUTTER LANE, the throat, the swallow, the red lane. See red lane.

GUZZLE, liquor; to guzzle, to drink greedily.

GYBE, or JYBE, any writing or pass with a seal.
GYBEING, jeering, or ridiculing.

GYPSIES, a set of vagrants, who to the great disgrace of our police, are suffered to wander about the country; they pretend that they derive their origin from the Ancient Egyptians, who were famous for their knowledge in astronomy, and other sciences, and under the pretence of fortune telling, find means to rob, or defraud the ignorant and superstitious. To colour their impostures, they artificially discolour their faces, and speak a kind of gibberish peculiar to themselves. They rove up and down the country in great companies, to the great terror of the farmers, from whose geese, turkies, and fowls, they take very considerable contributions.

When a fresh recruit is admitted into the fraternity, he is to take the following oath, administered by the principal maunder, after going through the annexed forms. First a new name is given him, by which he is ever after to be called, then standing up in the middle of the assembly, and directing his face to the dimber damber, or principal man of the gang, he repeats the following oath, which is dictated to him, by some experienced member of the fraternity:

I, Crank Cuffin, do swear to be a true brother, and that I will in all things obey the commands of the great tawney prince, and keep his counsel, and not divulge the secrets of my brethren.

I will never leave, nor forsake the company, but observe and keep all the times of appointments, either by day, or by night, in every place whatever.

I will not teach any one to cant, nor will I disclose any of our mysteries to them.

I will take my prince's part against all that shall oppose him, or any of us, according to the utmost of my ability, nor will I suffer him, or any belonging to us, to be abused by any strange abrams, rufflers, hookers, pailliards, swadlers, Irish toyles, swigmen, whip jacks, jark men, bawdy baskets, dommerars, clapper dogeons, patricoes, or curtals, but will defend him, or them, as much as I can, against all other outliers whatever. I will not conceal ought I win out of libkins, or from the ruffmans, but will preserve it for the use of the company. Lastly I will cleave to my

doxy wap stiffly, and will bring her duds, margery praters, goblers, grunting cheats, or tibs of the buttery, or any thing else I can come at, as winnings for her wappings. The canters have it seems a tradition, that from the three first articles of this oath, the first founders of a certain boastful, worshipful fraternity, who pretend to derive their origin from the earliest times, borrowed both the hint and form of their establishment. And that their pretended derivation from the first Adam is a forgery, it being only from the first Adam Tiler. See Adam Tiler. At the admission of a new brother, a general stock is raised for booze or drink to make themselves merry on the occasion. As for peckage or eatables, they can procure it without money, for while some are sent to break the ruffmans or woods and bushes, for firing, others are detached to filch geese, chickens, hens, ducks, or mallards, and pigs. Their morts are their butchers, who presently make bloody work with what living things are brought them, and having made holes in the ground under some remote hedge in an obscure place, they make a fire and boil or broil their food; and when 'tis enough, fall to work tooth and nail, and having eaten more like beasts than men, they drink more like swine than human creatures, entertaining one another all the time with songs in the canting dialect.

As they live so they lie together promiscuously, and know not how to claim a property, either in their goods or children, and this general interest ties them more firmly together, than if all their rags were twisted into ropes, to bind them indissolubly from a separation, which detestable union is farther consolidated by the above oath.

They stroll up and down all summer time in droves, and dextrously pick pockets, while they are telling of fortunes, and the money, rings, silver thimbles, &c., which they get, are instantly conveyed from one hand to another, till the remotest person of the gang, who is not suspected, because they come not near the person robbed, gets possession of it, so that in the strictest search, it is almost impossible to recover it, while the wretches with imprecations, oaths, and protestations, disclaim the thievery.

That by which they are said to get the most money, is, when
young gentlewomen of good families and reputation have
happened to be with child before marriage, a round sum
is often bestowed among the gypsies, for some one mort
to take the child; and as that is never heard of more by the
true mother and family, so the disgrace is kept concealed
from the world, and if the child lives it never knows its
parents.

GYP, a college runner or errand boy at Cambridge; called at
Oxford, a scout. See scout.

H.

HABERDASHER of pronouns, a school master, or usher.

HACKNEY WRITER, one who writes for attornies or booksellers.

HACKUM, captain hackum, a bravo, a slasher.

HAD'EM, he has been at Had'em and come home by Clapham, said of one who has caught the venereal disease.

HALF BORD, sixpence (cant).

HALF SEAS OVER, almost drunk.

HALF A HOG, sixpence.

HALF AN OUNCE, half a crown, silver being formerly estimated at a crown or five shillings an ounce.

HAMLET, a high constable (cant).

HAMS, or HAMCASES, breeches.

HANG GALLOWS LOOK, a thievish, or villainous appear

ance.

HANG IN CHAINS, a vile desperate fellow.

HANG AN ARSE, to hang back, to hesitate.
HANGMAN'S WAGES, thirteen pence halfpenny, which ac-
cording to the vulgar tradition was thus allotted, one shilling
for the execution, and three halfpence for the rope. N. B.
this refers to former times, the hangmen of the present
day, having like other artificers, raised their prices. The
true state of this matter is, that a Scottish mark was the fee
allowed for an execution, and the value of that piece was

F

settled by a proclamation of James I. at thirteen pence halfpenny.

HANG IT UP, speaking of a reckoning, score it up.

HANK, he has a hank on hin, i. e. an ascendant over him, or a hold upon him: a Smithfield hank, an ox rendered furious by over driving and barbarous treatment.

HANKER, to hanker after any thing, to have a longing after or for it.

HANKTELO, a silly fellow.

HANS IN KELDER, jack in the cellar, i. e. the child in the womb; a health frequently drank to breeding women, or their husbands.

HANDSOME BODIED MAN IN THE FACE, a jeering commendation of an ugly fellow.

HARD, stale beer nearly sour, is said to be hard. Hard also means severe, as hard fate, a hard master.

HARD AT HIS A-SE, close after him.

HARE, he has swallowed a hare, he is drunk, more probably
a hair which requires washing down.

HARK-YE-ING, whispering on one side to borrow money.
HARMAN, a constable (cant).

HARMAN BECK, a beadle (cant).

HARMANS, the stocks (cant).

HARUM SCARUM, he was running harum scarum, said of any one running or walking carelessly and in a hurry, after they know not what.

HERTFORDSHIRE KINDNESS, drinking twice to the same person.

HARRIDAN, a hagged old woman, a miserable scraggy worn out harlot, fit to take her bawd's degree; derived from the French word haridelle, a worn out jade of a horse

or mare.

HARP, to harp upon, to dwell upon a subject; have among you my blind harpers, an expression used in throwing or shooting at random among a crowd; harp is also the Irish expression for woman, or tail, used in tossing up in Ireland, from Hibernia being represented with a harp, on