prevent me from executing my commission," | glish, "but here they are unjustifiable. And said Hartridge. "Mr. Cooley has intrusted that a lady should lend herself to such an evame with this note," here he took out poor sion! I am inexpressibly pained and shocked!" Salem's scrawl, "and I will beg you for the sermon which you have in your possession. He has allowed me to read it; indeed it has excited so much remark, that it will have to undergo a very thorough criticism." Miss Milligan had listened without reply to Hartridge's remarks, but as he stopped for breath, she covered her burning face with two delicate white hands, and tears streamed through the taper fingers. At last, in a broken voice, she said, “It was to help my mother I did it, my widowed mother! I could not provide for her in any other way. Mr. Cooley's assistance has been every thing to us. Oh, Sir, you are cruelly severe!" Hartridge walked up and down the room. Shocked by the manner in which Cooley had deceived so many people (himself included), and astounded to find that Miss Milligan had dared to be his accomplice, he had been betrayed into a harshness of speech which he almost immediately regretted. For another thing, he observed that Miss Milligan was in tears, and he was not the first man who could not bear to see a pretty woman cry. "Will it, indeed ?" asked the lady, and she turned as white as the handkerchief in her hand. Why certainly it will," replied Walter; "here he has been preaching in a most extraordinary way. Nobody knows what to make of it. He was always very eccentric, but this last per- The tones of her voice were stifled by a deep formance goes beyond any thing that he has yet sigh. It was lucky for her that Mrs. Kimball done." Miss Milligan rose to find the sermon. was ironing in the wing, and Mehetabel gone She was so very pale, and looked so embar-out to pick vegetables, while Mrs. Milligan was rassed, that Hartridge's keen eye remarked her up stairs darning stockings. as she left the room, and he said to himself, "I wonder if she can be interested in Cooley? It looks like it." He walked up and down the room, then stopped and turned over the books on the table. On the fly-leaf of one was a rough pencil sketch of a man asleep, with his mouth open. Under it was written, in a lady's hand, "Beauty in repose, S. P. C." "No, no," said Hartridge, bursting into a hearty laugh, "she's not in love with him! It's Salem P. Cooley, I declare!" And with a feeling of positive delight he sat down to wait for Miss Milligan. She soon returned, bearing a small closely folded manuscript, and evidently expected that Walter would put it in his pocket unopened, and then depart. In this she was mistaken, for he took it to the window, opened and examined it. Miss Milligan sat pale and motionless in her chair; she kept her eyes on Hartridge, whose brow grew stern and dark as he rapidly ran over several pages of the manuscript. At last he turned around. "This is a most singular thing!" he observed, dryly and coldly. "The handwriting of this is evidently not Cooley's. I know his hand pretty well. There is an initial M. on the paper. I do not believe he wrote this. There is some gross deception here, I am afraid. Excuse me, but I believe you could explain it if you chose." "Sir!" said Miss Milligan, coloring scarlet. "Pray, pray excuse me," said Hartridge, changing his tone instantly; "you have only to say that I am wrong, that you know nothing about it, and L. beg ten thousand pardons." Miss Milligan sat perfectly silent, but her cheeks grew red and then pale. Hartridge looked at her keenly and coldly. "Miss Milligan," said he, "your silence leaves me but one possible conclusion. You know all about the matter, for you have written this sernion. Is it not so?" "I can not deny it," said she, trembling all "A So he stopped short in his walk across the room, and stood before Miss Milligan. grave offense against truth and propriety has been committed," said he, gently, "though the odium of it must rest upon Cooley. But I will try and hush up the matter, that farther scandal may be prevented. If Cooley is unable to prepare his own sermons, I apprehend his usefulness is at an end; but at any rate, such an arrangement as this, of course, could no longer exist." No reply. A deep sigh from Miss Milligan. "I hope," said Walter, not without hesitation, "that you will pardon the apparent harshness of any thing I may have said." Still no answer. "I really can not go," said Hartridge, with his hat in his hand, "until you say that you do not entertain any hard feeling toward me. If I have been severe, let me beg you to excuse me. Pray do. Will you not?" he asked, very gently. "You have been quite right, and I very, very wrong," said Miss Milligan, with a misty smile in her eyes as she took her handkerchief from her face. "But I own that your remarks, though just, were hard to bear." "But you forgive me, do you not?" he broke in. "We part friends, quite friends; is it not so?" "Yes. You meant well. Quite friends." "And may I take your hand?" She gave it to him; he held the pretty white satin hand for a moment, and pressed it earnestly before he let it go. He bowed politely and was gone, but half his heart was left behind. Great was the wrath of Deacon Tinkham and the rest of the flock when they discovered they had been praising and admiring, for more than a year, a man who had been strutting in the borrowed plumes of preachers of all beliefs and denominations. Mr. Hartridge had enough to do to calm down the excited congregation. He managed so well, that, while every one knew that the sermon on "Faith" was not written by Cooley, no one ever was able to detect the real author. THIEVES' JARGON. own is HAT the noble society of thieves and beggars bly well known; but few of the honest readers of HARPER'S MAGAZINE, probably, suspect that this jargon is very complete; that it is understood and used in this country as well as in England-the French having an argot of their own of hieroglyphics, with the help of which one of the fraternity can make known to those who follow him all the useful information he has acquired as a "tramp." At first a storm of indignation was aroused against Cooley; but by one of those strange fa--and that it includes a simple but complete set talities which sometimes occur, Salem, from being an object of wrath, became one of pity. As he was driving over to Wingham his horse took fright, ran away, broke the wagon, and threw him out. One of his own parishioners picked him up, much injured; and his leg was found so badly fractured that he would be crippled for life. He resigned his charge; and Deacon Tinkham and the rest of the congregation at once called another, and, let us hope, a more successful minister. Mr. John Camden Hotten, of London, has set himself the task of compiling a Dictionary of Cant and Slang-an amusing volume to the uninitiated, though perhaps not so welcome to the professional rogue, whose "mystery" it lays bare. As the thieves' cant is founded upon English, it may seem to some that any ingenious person might unravel it without Mr. Hotten's assistance. To such we have the pleasure of presenting the following communication, written by a "chaunter," an English vendor of street ballads, to a gentleman who had taken some interest in his welfare: the Bossman's Patter therefore i am broke up and not But through autumn sunlight and autumn showers Mr. Hartridge galloped over from Wingham to Appledore. His horse became a wellknown object in the landscape, as, picketed in front of Widow Kimball's dwelling while his master was within, he beguiled the weary hours by nibbling the bark off the widow's trees. And DEAR FRIEND,-Excuse the liberty, since i saw you last that stupid little parlor had grown to be a heav-i have not earned a thickun, we have had such a Dowry en on earth to Hartridge. The dull pattern of of Parny that it completely Stumped or Coopered Drory the carpet, the ugly ornaments on the chimney- having another friend but you i wish to know if you piece were associated in his mind only with pleas-would lend me the price of 2 Gross of Tops, Dies, or ure and joy; for here in this humble spot he had found his "own heart's home." And Miss Milligan, too, felt that a magic charm had been cast over her dull life in Appledore. Every thing was bright and radiant, for "love was now the lord of all." And papering and plastering and refitting went on at the parsonage in Wingham, and it was whispered among the gossips that winter would not have come before the minister would bring home a young bride. "Pears like as we made a mistake," said Mrs. Kimball to Mehetabel; "it warn't Cooley arter all. Wa'al, he was awful humly; I guess she has done a sight better." "I guess so tew," said Mehetabel. "Ain't it strange what things goes on in our midst ?" The Indian Summer had come. Mrs. Milligan sat knitting in the keeping-room. The fair-haired Alice was on the little sofa, and Walter lounged by her side. In one hand he held an open book; in the other a long golden curl that hung from the pretty head that was so close to his own. "Why do you not read, you lazy Walter?" said his Alice's silvery tones. "Ah, how idle you have grown!" "Study is a good thing," said Hartridge, roguishly. "To the perusal of one rather eccentric literary work I may say I owe all my present happiness." "And what may that be?" Walter seized her hand, and drawing her toward him, whispered in her ear— "Miss Milligan's Sermon!" Croaks, which is 7 shillings, of the above-mentioned wor- Without a glossary it would be difficult to make out the meaning of this letter, though it is pretty simple.* Mr. Hotten assures us that in all languages the thieves and beggars have their jargon; and certainly as the policeman is nearly as universal as the thief in this over-civilized world of ours, the poor persecuted fraternity of pirates, by land and water, have occasion for all the defenses they In French, the secret language of can muster. thieves and cut-throats is called argot. The Spanish thief calls his private tongue Germania, • The writer, a street chaunter of ballads and last dying speeches, alludes in his letter to two celebrated criminals-Thos. Drory, the murderer of Jael Denny, and Sarah Chesham, who poisoned her husband, accounts of whose trials and "horrid deeds" he had been selling. Below is a glossary of the Cant words: Thickun, a crown-piece. Dory of Parny, a lot of rain. Topped, hung. Sturaban, a prison. 66 Carser, a house or resi dence. Speel on the Drum, to be off to the country. All Square, all right, or quite well. holding that gipsies and other loose fellows came from Germany; the German robber uses what he calls Roth-wälsch, pointing to his conviction that thieves came from Italy. In Malta and other places in the Mediterranean they use a mongrel tongue called Lingua Franca, which is, as it were, the universal or court language of the looser part of society. The Lazaroni and the Italian brigands use a secret jargon which they call Gergo; and we are assured that even the Hottentots have a set of parasites and vagabonds, with a peculiar lingo called cuze-cot. used in the thieves' jargon; but it reminds us of our word budget, a parcel, which Worcester derives from the French. So cofe was, in the old slang, a man; gentry cofe, a gentle man; gentry cofe's ken, a gentle man's house. From cofe we have cove, a slang term for a man; but may it not also be the origin of the word c-ffee, which is applied to the negro? In Thomas Harman's Canting Dictionary. published in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and embodied in this later work by Mr. Hotten, we find these and some other amusing words and phrases. Harman gives the term freshe-water In the language of the English rogue, to cant has meant "to speak" for more than three hun-mariners, saying, "These kind of caterpillers dred years. It came, doubtless, from chaunt; the professional beggar, and the amateur who turns from thieving to begging for a change, or for a purpose, have always found their account, in England, in singing for the street public. A chaunter-a canter-was a street-ballad singer, one of a tribe not yet extinct. A writer of the 16th century mentions that the beggars and gipsies "have devised a language among themselves, which they name Canting, or Pedlar's Frenche." In more recent times this has been known as St. Giles's Greek. Mr. Hotten is careful to distinguish between cant and slang as very different: a thief in cant language would term a horse a prancer or a prad; while in slang a man of fashion would speak of it as a bit of blood, or a spanker, or a neat tit. A handkerchief, too, would be a billy, a fogle, or a kent rag, in the secret language of low characters; while among vulgar persons, or those who ape their speech, it would be called a rug, a wipe, or a clout. He points out that a number of words which have crept into our language, or are used by the English canters, are of Gipsy origin. Thus bamboozle is Gipsy, and means there to perplex or mislead by hiding; bosh is Gipsy; gad means wife, in that tongue -in ours it applies more narrowly to a woman with a sharp tongue. Gibberish is the name of the Gipsy language; with us it is applied to unmeaning collocations of words. But the thieves' jargon being an unwritten tongue, has greatly changed in the last three hundred years-so much so that Mr. Hotten tells us the modern "Greeks" of St. Giles could not understand much of the old cant, and would be puzzled to guess the meaning of many of the older canting songs, as that famous one of which the following is a verse: "Bing out, bien Morts, and toure and toure, But it is curious to remark that in the old cant are some words which look akin to some others now in common English use. For instance, boogit signified basket; it is no longer Which, literally translated, means: "Go out, good girls, and look and see, For all your clothes are carried away, counterfet great losses on the sea: their shippes were drowned in the playne of Salisbury.”— "Prigger of prauncers," he says, "be horsestealers, for to prigge signifieth in their language to steale, and a prauncer is a horse; so, being put together, the matter was playn." He concludes his description of this order of "pryggers" by noting, "I had the best gelding stolen out of my pasture, that I had amongst others, whyle this book was first a printing." It is not often that a lexicographer can justify a definition by such a personal experience. All languages and all jargons seem to have been laid under contribution to furnish the English thieves' cant. Argot, the name by which they call it, is from the French. Booze, a house, comes from the Dutch buysen. Domine, a parson, is from the Spanish. Donna and feeles, a woman and children, is from the Latin; and don, a clever fellow, has been filched from the Lingua Franca, or bastard Italian; while duds, the vulgar term for clothes, may have been pilfered either from the Gaelic or the Dutch. Feele, a daughter, from the French; and frow, a girl or wife, from the German-are common tramps' terms. So gent, silver, is from the French argent; and vial, a country town, also from the French. Horrid-horn, a fool, is believed to be from the Erse; and gloak, a man, from the Scotch. Mayhew says: "There are several Hebrew terms in our cant language, obtained, it would appear, from the intercourse of the thieves with the Jew fences (receivers of stolen goods); many of the cant terms, again, are Sanscrit, got from the gipsies; many Latin, got by the beggars from the Catholic prayers before the Reformation; and many, again, Italian, got from the wandering musicians and others; indeed, the showmen have but lately introduced a number of Italian phrases into their cant language." The Hindostanee also contributes several words, which have been introduced by the Lascar sailors. Moreover, the English thieves' jargon has preserved many words of English which were formerly in common and respectable use, but are now dropped from the Dictionaries as low or vulgar. Mr. Hotten has made a curious collection of such words, which would now, but did not once, shock ears polite: “A young gentleman from Belgravia, who had lost his watch or his pocket-handkerchief, would scarcely remark to his mamma that it had been boned-yet bone, A "An allowance made to poor men of fashion, men who exchange old clothes, butlers, and footmen out of place.N.B. Gentlemen finding their own materials can be ac commodated." in old times, meant, among high and low, to with the same stuff; kerseymere knee-breeches, any color, steal. A young lady living in the precincts of made very fashionable, with the yellow neckhandkerchief dingy but aristocratic May-Fair, although en- style; broad cord ditto, made the top of the fashion; included; cord ditto, made in the Melton Mowbray' raptured with Jenny Lind or Ristori, would moleskins, of all colors, made in the latest fashion, with hardly think of turning back in the box to in- double stripes down the side, and buttons at the bottom; form papa that she made no bones of it; yet the stout ditto, very strongly made. Waistcoats, cut longphrase was most respectable and well-to-do be-waisted, with moleskin back and sleeves. Blue cloth ditto, fashionably cut. Gaiters, leggins, boots, and shoes, made fore it met with a change of circumstances. very reasonable. crack article,' however first-rate, would, as far as speech is concerned, have greatly displeased Dr. Johnson and Mr. Walker; yet both crack, in the sense of excellent, and crack up, to boast or praise, were not considered vulgarisms in the time of Henry VIII. Dodge, a cunning trick, is from the Anglo-Saxon; and ancient nobles used to get each other's dander up' before appealing to their swords-quite flabergasting (also a respectable old word) the half score of lookers-on with the thumps and cuts of their heavy weapons. Gallavanting, waiting upon the ladies, was as polite in expression as in action; while a clergyman at Paule's Crosse thought nothing of bidding a noisy hearer 'hold his gab,' or shut up his gob.' Gadding, roaming about in an idle and 'trapesing' manner, was used in an old translation of the Bible; and 'to do any thing gingerly' was to do it with great care. The great Lord Bacon spoke of the lower part of a man's face as his gills." Shakspeare has preserved many such words, which he now enjoys in communing with costermongers and others of the lower sort. Thus, "clean gone," in the sense of out of sight; "it won't fud je," or suit; "I'll make him buckle under." There is a limited literature of the thieves' jargon, of which an example, in the shape of a tailor's advertisement, is subjoined. This we take from Mr. G. W. Matsell's "Rogue's Lexicon :" "WILLIAM BRISTOL, whose chaat used to be Bristol Bill, wishes to nose his old pals, and the public generally, that he has tied up prigging, and is now squaring it at No. 350 Back Hill, Hatten Garden, where he keeps on hand, for ready cole--tick being no go-upper benjamine, built on a downy plan; slap-up velveteen togs, lined with the same broady; moleskin ditto, any color, lined with the same broady; kerseymere kicksies, any color, built very slap with the artful dodge; stout cord ditto, built in the Melton Mowbray' style; broad cord ditto, made very saucy; moleskin, all colors, built hanky spanky, with double fakement down the side, and artful buttons at the bottom; stout ditto, built very serious. Out and out fancy sleeve kicksies, cut to drop down on the trotters. Waist benjamins, cut long, with moleskin back and sleeves. Blue cloth ditto, cut slap-up. Mud-pipes, knee-caps, and But, besides this, there are hieroglyphic signs, well understood by the whole fraternity, and used by the noble order of "tramps"-which includes, in England, beggars, peddlers, "freshwater mariners," sneaks, and thieves of the humbler and less enterprising kind. These marks may be seen on corners of streets, on door-posts, and on house-steps; they inform the succeeding vagrants of all they require to know; and a few white scratches may say, "Be importunate," or "Pass on." A writer in Notes and Queries remarks, on this subject: "Every door or passage is pregnant with instruction as to the error committed by the patron of beggars; the beggarmarks show that a system of freemasonry is followed, by which a beggar knows whether it will be worth his while to call into a passage or knock at a door. Let any one examine the entrances to the passages in any town, and there he will find chalk marks unintelligible to him, but significant enough to beggars. If a thousand towns are examined, the same marks will be found at every passage entrance. The passage mark is a cipher with a twisted tail: in some cases the tail projects into the passage, in others outwardly; thus seeming to indicate whether the houses down the passage are worth Almost every door has its calling at or not. In some cases there marks: these are varied. is a cross on the brick-work, in others a cipher: the figures 1, 2, 3, are also used. Every person may for himself test the accuracy of these statements by the examination of the brick-work near his own doorway-thus demonstrating that mendicity is a regular trade, carried out upon a system calculated to save time and realize the larg est profits." An English "tramp" described to Mayhew the method of "working" a small town. He said: "Two hawkers (pals) go together, but separate when they enter a village, one taking each side of the road, and selling different things; "A decent allowance made to Seedy Swells, Tea Kettle and in order to inform each other as to the charPurgers, Head Robbers, and Flunkeys out of Collar.-acter of the people at whose houses they call, N.B. Gentlemen finding their own Broady can be accom trotter-cases, built very low. modated." The uninitiated reader would find some difficulty in deciphering the above, and we subjoin, therefore, a translation of it: "WILLIAM BRISTOL, formerly known as Bristol Bill, wishes to inform his old friends, and the public generally, that he has given up stealing, and is now getting his living honestly, at 350 Back Hill, Hatten Garden, where he keeps on hand for ready money, overcoats of a superior style and pattern; superior velveteen coats, lined with the same material; moleskin, any color, lined they chalk certain marks on their door-posts." The English love of system has indeed turned begging into an industry. It is a trade or occupation; as such, it is followed by thousands; and they avail themselves very ingeniously of labor-saving devices. Thus in many cases, over the kitchen mantle-piece of a thieves' lodginghouse, is hung a map of the district, marked with certain signs which denote failure or sucMr. Hotten cess in mendicant applications. has been so fortunate as to procure one of these charts, of the district of Maidstone, in Kent, my' [bad] are ever mentioned in these lists; which we copy on this page, with the explanations given of the marks or hieroglyphics. Who "Sarah" is, or what relation this mysterious and homely creature has to the district, Mr. Hotten was unable to ascertain. and the cadger, if he feels inclined to stop for a few days in the town, will be told by the lodging-house keeper, or the other cadgers that he may meet there, what gentlemen's seats or private houses are of any account on the walk that he means to take. The names of the good houses are not set down in the paper for fear of the police." This custom appears to be very old; it was noticed by English writers three hundred years ago. The communication by signal reaches even to the gallows. The display of a red handkerchief by the "sufferer" is a token that he has not betrayed any professional secrets. When no artist appears to make a map for the fraternity, Mayhew tells us that the "walks" are described in writing. "In almost every one of the padding-kens, or low lodging-houses, in the country, there is a list of walks pasted up over the kitchen mantle - piece. At St. Albans, for instance, at the, and at other places, there is a paper stuck up in each of the kitchens. This paper is headed, 'Walks out of this Town,' and underneath it are set down the names of the villages in the neighborhood at which a beggar may call when out on his walk, and they are so arranged as to allow the cadger to make a round of about six miles each day, and return the same night. In many of these papers there are sometimes twenty walks set down. No villages that are in any way ‘gam The origin of the mark of direction, the third in the list given below, is explained by the following paragraph in an English "Constable's Guide:" "Gipsies follow their brethren by numerous marks, such as strewing handfuls of grass in the day time at a four-lane or crossroads: the grass being strewn down the road the gang have taken; also, by a cross being made M the migh wary STOP-if you have what they want, they will buy. They are pretty "Ay" GO IN THIS DIRECTION, it is better than the other road. Nothing that on the ground with a stick or knife -the longest end of the cross denoting the route taken. In the night time a cleft stick is placed in the fence at the cross-roads, with an arm pointing down the road their comrades have taken. The marks are always placed on the left-hand side, so that the stragglers can easily and readily find them." It is curious to learn that the publication of these hieroglyphics has enabled some persons to escape the importunities of beggars. A clergyman writes that by himself marking the characters (Gammy) and (Flummuxed) on the gate-posts of his parsonage, he enjoys a singular immunity from alms-seekers and cadgers on the tramp. Mr. Hotten has some amusing paragraphs about slang, which he separates entirely from thieves' jargon. Slang is low English; and the English are perhaps the most slangy of civilized nations—though they accuse us Americans of being their masters in this art of indirect expression. If we speak of our President as "Uncle Abe," they call their Queen "Little Vic," their Prime Minister "Pam," the leader of the Opposition "Dizzy;" and every grade of society in England, if we may believe Mr. Hot BONE (good). Safe for a "cold tatur," if for nothing else. "Cheese your ten, has its own peculiar slang. pater" (don't talk much) here. COOPER'D (spoiled), by too many tramps calling there GAMMY (unfavorable), likely to have you taken up. Mind the dog In English politics, for instance, a plumper is a single vote at an election-not a split-ticket; and electors who have occupied a house, no matter how small, and boiled a pot in it, thus qualifying them |