Murder in Montague Place

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Murder in Montague Place Page 24

by Martyn Beardsley


  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

  Ragged schools – establishments for educating street children

  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

 

 

 


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