What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew

by Daniel Pool

  independency (or independence)—A term meaning enough money to live on more or less adequately.

  India Office—The branch of the British government that handled Indian affairs.

  India ink—A kind of paint or ink that was actually from China or Japan and that was made from lampblack and came in sticks.

  india rubber—Ordinary rubber. Among other things, it was used for erasers.

  induction—One of the steps required to formally install a new clergyman in a living or benefice. In contrast to “institution,” induction involved putting him in possession of the actual church buildings.

  institution—The act of putting a clergyman into spiritual possession of his living, as opposed to “induction.”

  inform—To inform or lay an information against someone was to bring a formal criminal complaint against them. This was the usual method of prosecuting and convicting in the 1800s since there were no public prosecutors such as district attorneys. For a while Parliament even provided financial incentives to do so. One did not have to be a crime victim to “inform.”

  inkhorn—A portable ink container. At one time they were actually made from horns; hence, the name.

  in-law—A word sometimes used confusingly. Often it meant just what one would expect, i.e., “father-in-law” was sometimes used to designate one’s spouse’s father. However, the term was also used to designate a step-relationship. Thus in David Copperfield the odious schoolmaster Mr. Creakle tells the young hero after Murdstone has married David’s mother, “I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law,” then “pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness.” Just to confuse things further, “brother” or “sister” was sometimes used to mean “brother-in-law” or “sister-in-law.”

  Inner Temple—See Inns of Court.

  Inns of Court—Four institutions—the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn and Gray’s Inn—located near the western boundary of the City which housed barristers and their law offices, as well as dining halls for the barristers and their law students. Besides serving as offices, dwellings, and law school, the inns had the sole power to determine who should be “called to the bar.”

  inquest—See coroner.

  interest—Often used to mean influence with someone or some institution, e.g., “pull.”

  iron dogs—Andirons.

  ironmonger—Someone who sold hardware.

  irregulars—Full-time paid soldiers made up a regular army. Part-time volunteers or militia, on the other hand, constituted “irregulars.”

  jack—A mechanically operated manikin in a clock tower that periodically struck bells to indicate the time.

  jackboots—Boots that came up over the knee. In the days before they became associated with dictatorships, cavalrymen wore them because they protected against sword cuts and leg injuries.

  jackdaw—A small but clever member of the crow family.

  Jack Ketch—A barbaric hangman of the 1600s whose name became a synonym thereafter for the hangman.

  jack towel—A long towel on a roller.

  japanning—A technique supposedly derived from Japan of applying a black, shiny lacquer to things.

  japonica—Various kinds of Japanese plants.

  jaunting car—Perhaps more properly called a “jolting car.” A two-wheel cart carrying up to four people. “An inside jaunting-car is a bad place for conversation,” Trollope observes in Can You Forgive Her?, “as your teeth are nearly shaken out of your head by every movement which the horse makes.”

  Jenny—A nickname for Jane or Janet. In her family, Jane Austen was known as Jenny.

  jet—A type of coal which could take a high polish and be made into beads and the like. It was the one kind of ornament acceptable for women to wear in the early stages of mourning. From whence comes our term “jet black,” as in the color of hair.

  jig—A one-person dance of considerable bounciness; no particular step was dictated.

  jobber—A jobber was someone who rented horses. In addition, “job” was the term sometimes given to a position in the government which had been used unethically or improperly for private gain.

  jointure—A legal term designating the portion of her husband’s estate which a widow was to enjoy after his death. The precise amount formed the subject of negotiations between teams of lawyers in the arrangements for “marriage settlements” which preceded marriages between persons of substance during the period.

  jorum—A slang term meaning a big drinking bowl of some kind or else the amount of liquor it could hold.

  joseph—An old-fashioned long coat used by women when riding that had buttons down the front.

  journeyman—The term applied to someone who had completed his apprenticeship and was thus free to hire himself out by the day (from the French jour, meaning “day”). Generally, the term meant someone who had mastered a craft and—upon obtaining sufficient skill and some funds of his own—might be in turn expected to set up as a master. It is clearly a comedown for Henchard in The Mayor of Casterbridge that he goes bankrupt and is reduced to working as a journeyman. In Great Expectations, we learn that Joe Gargery the blacksmith “kept a journeyman at weekly wages,” the infamous Orlick.

  junior lordship—In certain departments of government, subordinate positions were called junior lordships. There were three, for example, in the Treasury Department, who were junior to the first lord of the treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  justice of the peace—The man who received a “commission of the peace” from the sovereign through the lord lieutenant to maintain the local peace and in general regulate affairs in his part of the county. This task he performed by undertaking various administrative and regulatory functions such as the licensing of alehouses, dispensing summary justice to minor offenders against the peace, appointing local parish officials like the constable, and sitting four times a year with his fellow justices in the county at the quarter sessions to decide more serious matters. The post was only open to those with a £100 income; in practice, it was invariably held by a member of the local gentry like a squire or the parish clergyman. Justices of the peace were often referred to as “magistrates.” Mr. Brooke in Middlemarch is one—so are Edgar Linton and his father in Wuthering Heights and Pitt Crawley in Vanity Fair.

  Kensington—A district of western London just beyond Hyde Park.

  kerseymere—A fancy kind of wool cloth.

  King’s Bench—One of the three superior courts of common law that sat in London, abolished in 1873 when it was combined with the other two into one overall court. It principally heard criminal matters and quasi-criminal civil matters like cases involving “deceit.” It sat in Westminster Hall.

  King’s Counsel—An honor granted to barristers who had served with great distinction and who, at least at one time, were actually supposed to be counselors of the king. The honor conferred the right to write “K.C.” after one’s name and to wear a gown of silk. It replaced becoming a serjeant as the highest honor a barrister could achieve. During Victoria’s reign the honor was, of course, that of Queen’s Counsel.

  kiss hands, to—Upon assuming office, it was customary for the prime minister to kiss the monarch’s hand as a token of fealty. Officially, after all, the term prime minister meant merely the foremost, or “prime,” minister of the sovereign.

  kitchenmaid—The maid who helped the cook prepare meals, made the cooking fire, etc. Within the household she ranked just above the scullerymaid.

  knacker—A man who purchased and slaughtered old horses for the fertilizer, horsehair stuffing, catmeat, etc., that could be made out of them.

  knave—In cards the knave was the jack but it was considered lower class to call it that. “He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!” says the ever-sweet Estella during one of her early meetings with Pip. “And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!”

  knickerbocker—A type of men’s pants that became fashionable in the latter part of the century. They came down to the
knees and bagged out rather fully. They were supposedly named after the illustrations of Dutch merchants with similar pants in Washington Irving’s comic history of New York.

  knife—The fork was something of a latecomer to the English table as an instrument for getting food into the mouth. The knife was long favored for this purpose instead.

  knifeboard—In omnibuses the knifeboard consisted of two benches placed back to back and running the length of the roof.

  knight—The lowest of the titled ranks in England. A knight was allowed to put “Sir” in front of his name and his wife was addressed as “Lady——.” The knight ranked below a baronet; the knight, unlike peers and baronets, could not pass the title on to his child. There were various orders of knighthood such as the Order of the Garter and the Bath which gave one a higher social status than did plain knighthood alone.

  knock up—To bang on somebody’s door in order to wake them up. In inebriated ecstasy at the prospect of marrying Becky Sharp, Joe Sedley confides to Dobbin in the Vauxhall Gardens that “he would marry her next morning at St. George’s, Hanover Square; he’d knock up the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth: he would, by Jove! and have him in readiness.”

  £—The sign for the monetary unit, the pound.

  Ladies’ Mile—A riding road in Hyde Park for women.

  lady—Someone’s “lady” in colloquial usage was his wife. As a title, “Lady” was used in the following ways: (1) for the wife of a baronet or knight, e.g., Sir Henry Churchill, “Lady Churchill”; (2) for the wife of a peer below the rank of duke, e.g., the earl of Derby, “Lady Derby”; (3) for the wife of a younger son of a duke or of a marquis (the son bearing the courtesy title “Lord”), e.g., Lord Henry Russell, “Lady Henry Russell”; and (4) for the daughter of a duke, marquis, or earl, e.g., George Russell, the earl of Derby, “Lady Mary Russell.”

  ladybird—Not a bird at all but what we call the ladybug. Also called a ladyclock.

  Lady Day—March 25, the day the Angel Gabriel is said to have announced the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary. One of the quarter days. Until 1752, it was used as the start of the year for purposes of official business.

  Lady Day.

  lady’s maid—The woman who took care of her mistress’s clothes and grooming, dressing her, packing and laying out her clothes, and mending them with small repairs if necessary. She was considered an “upper servant” and could not be fired by the housekeeper. Often better educated than the average maid, she was also resented by the housemaids. Her lot was not necessarily easy; lady’s maids were generally supposed to be young—when they got too old they might well find themselves out of work on the grounds of age alone.

  Lambeth—An area across the Thames from Westminster where Lambeth Palace, the official residence of the archbishop of Canterbury, was located.

  Lammas—August 1, the date of an old church festival at which bread from the harvest was sanctified.

  lancers—A type of cavalry distinguished by the fact that they indeed carried nine-foot lances made of bamboo. They gave their name to an apparently vigorous form of the quadrille.

  landau—A kind of open, fancy carriage with four wheels popular in the first part of the century. It had a hood at each end and two seats opposite each other.

  lanthorn—An old-fashioned lantern whose panes were made of animal horn rather than glass. See horn.

  lappets—Basically, parts of a garment like a cap or a coat that hung down.

  lapwing—A member of the plover family that was also sometimes called the “pewit” because of the call it made.

  larder—The place where, as a rule, perishable goods like meats were kept in a great house, as opposed to the pantry, which stored nonperishable food. Larder, of course, comes from the same root as the word “lard.” Pride and Prejudice mentions “such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords.”

  latititudinarian—Someone who did not believe that the forms of religion made that much difference.

  lattice—A window crisscrossed with little bars.

  laudanum—Opium in a solution of alcohol.

  lawn—A type of fancy linen that was used, inter alia, in the sleeves of bishops of the Church of England as part of their clerical attire.

  lay an information—See inform.

  leader—In a newspaper, it was an editorial. In a team of horses, the leaders were the ones in front (as opposed to the “wheelers”); in a tandem pair, the leader was the horse in front.

  leads—A rooftop made out of lead.

  league—An old-fashioned, not very precise measurement of distance equal to roughly two to four miles.

  Lent—The forty-day period between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

  letter of credit—A letter from a banker or similar figure to another banker or businessman, asking him to give money to the person presenting the letter. Used by travelers abroad in the days before American Express.

  levee—A formal reception held for the presentation of men to the sovereign or to the sovereign’s representative. A “drawing room” was the equivalent ceremony for the presentation of women.

  leveret—A young hare.

  Liberal—The party that advocated reform and free trade and, together with its opponents, the Conservatives, dominated nineteenth-century English politics. It was the descendant of the Whig party and its most famous leader was Prime Minister William Gladstone.

  liberty—The liberty of a city was an area, as in London, that was outside the formal city limits but was still subject to the authority of the mayor and the rest of the corporation.

  library—A male preserve in most houses, sometimes serving as the place of business, as when, say, the male head of the house had tenants to receive. Poor Mr. Bennet of the eligible daughters in Pride and Prejudice is besieged in his library by his absurd relative Mr. Collins: “In his library he had always been sure of leisure and tranquillity; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room in the house, he was used to be free from them there.”

  license to marry—The way to get married if one did not want to get married by the banns. There were three different kinds of licenses by mid-century. The archbishop of Canterbury could provide a “special license” to get married anywhere, any time, and a local minister could grant a much cheaper license that permitted marriage in the parish. Finally, beginning in 1836, one could also get a license to have a simple civil ceremony at the local registrar’s office or a ceremony in a nonconformist place of worship.

  lieutenant—In the army, he was the officer who assisted a captain in running a company. He and the second lieutenant were known as subalterns. In the navy, lieutenant was also a junior post, the first real position of any authority or importance—it required passing the lieutenant’s exam after serving six years as a midshipman. Both the army and navy ranks are to be distinguished from the post of lord lieutenant.

  lieutenant colonel—The rank just below colonel. He was often the man who actually ran the regiment that the colonel nominally commanded.

  lieutenant general—A subordinate to a general.

  Life Guards—Along with the Horse Guards, the Life Guards composed the cavalry units that guarded the royal family.

  lifeholder—Someone who leased land for periods of time measured either by his life or the lives of others.

  life interest—A life interest in a piece of property was a right to that property which gave the holder the right to enjoy it only during his lifetime, i.e., he typically could not sell or mortgage it, or do anything else that would prevent it from passing intact and unencumbered to the succeeding generation.

  life preserver—A wooden truncheon, sometimes with lead in the end of it, used by criminals and sometimes by guardians of the law, too. The ghastly Miss Murdstone is at one point engaged to serve as Dora’s protector, leading David Copperfield to observe that “Miss Murdstone, like the pocket-instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for purposes of protection as assault
.”

  light—See heavy.

  lighter—A barge used to load or unload things from a ship like a collier.

  Limehouse—An area in east London around the docks.

  line regiment—One of the regular regiments of the army, as opposed to the Household Guards on the one hand or supplementary troops such as the militia on the other.

  linen—A generic term for fine shirts and underwear, since linen was the material generally used to make them before cotton became popular. The material had the advantages of being cool and strong. There were different kinds. Lawn and cambric—the latter favored for handkerchiefs—were fine varieties used by the rich. The poor used coarser types of linen.

  link—A torch made with pitch that was carried by “linkboys” ahead of carriages to light their way through the city streets at night.

  linnet—A brown and gray songbird, except that it turned red in summer.

  linsey-woolsey—Material of mixed wool and linen. Also, low-grade wool.

  list—The edge of a cloth, from which things like slippers were sometimes made.

  Liverpool—A major port for shipping from the West Indies and the non-English side of the Atlantic.

  livery—A distinctive uniform worn by servants in the service of a particular master, e.g., the knee breeches and powdered wigs worn by footmen.

  livery company—Livery companies were descendants of the guild and craft organizations which had once played a leading role in the economy and governance of London. By the 1800s for the most part they had degenerated into prestigious chowder-and-marching societies with various affluent and distinguished personages among their membership.

  livery stable—A place to rent horses.

  living—A benefice.

  loam—A very fertile kind of soil, made of clay, sand, and rotting vegetation. Middlemarch is set in the fictitious county of Loamshire.

  lobby—In the Houses of Parliament, it designated first of all, a large hallway where members could receive the general public; this is where, in Phineas Finn, the eponymous hero is pursued by a bill collector. In addition, there were two other lobbies adjacent to each House into which members went when they were to be counted in a formal division of the House.