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Title: A vocabulary of criminal slang
with some examples of common usages
Author: Louis E. Jackson
Release date: August 5, 2025 [eBook #76632]
Language: English
Original publication: Portland: Modern Printing Co, 1915
Credits: Terry Jeffress and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VOCABULARY OF CRIMINAL SLANG ***
A VOCABULARY OF
CRIMINAL SLANG
Copyrighted, 1914
By LOUIS E. JACKSON
A VOCABULARY OF
CRIMINAL SLANG
WITH
SOME EXAMPLES OF
COMMON USAGES
BY
LOUIS E. JACKSON
Assisted by
C. R. HELLYER, _City Detective Department_
PORTLAND, OREGON
Price, $1.50
DEDICATED TO
T. M. Word
Sheriff of Multnomah County, Oregon
A Fearless
and Intelligent Administrator
of a Public Trust.
_INTRODUCTION_
It is not with a view to sensationalism that this little work is
undertaken, but with a sense of helpfulness, of social obligation. It
is submitted for the perusal and study of all those public officers and
professional servants whose responsibilities are such as to bring them
into casual or constant contact with the confirmed criminal classes.
It may fall into the hands of some unfit subjects and thereby
contribute to the propagation of its contents in undesirable quarters.
On the other hand we may consider that publicity is the speediest agent
for the destruction of cankerous moral growths. Perhaps the possession
of such knowledge as is here presented argues a sordidness; but Gordian
knots can be untied only by use of the sword; to have cherries in the
winter a can opener must be used, or to stand eggs on end you must
smash them.
By the very nature of crime its efficient vehicle of transmission is
ephemeral, very ephemeral. The vernacular of twenty-five years ago
is almost oblivion today. So with the future; provided, of course,
that the idiom of the underworld surrender its meaning to the social
layers superimposed upon it. This process can be made effective by
investigation and publicity. When bench and bar, the press, custodians
of law and order and private agencies devoted to the detection,
repression and correction of crime are made familiar with the wiles
and mode of communication of criminals, the latter are rendered less
powerful insofar as the evolved system of guile and wrong-doing are
concerned.
It is noticeably true that our average law officer or advocate is
necessarily a specialist in one or perhaps a few, at most, of the many
recognized branches of professional crime. The limitation is occasioned
in part by prescribed capacity and in part by inexperience or
unfamiliarity with criminals of all types and their methods. Efficiency
in general correctional labor may undoubtedly be promoted by a fuller
understanding of the linguistic acquirements of subjects to be dealt
with in every day practice. It is hoped that the publication of this
vocabulary of criminal terms will render material advantages to the
conscientious workers in this large field.
We are conscious of many errors of omission in the work and we request
the co-operation of all who are interested in its utility. Only the
essential and most pertinent or purely criminal vernacular usages have
been selected from the mystical parlance of professional violators and
their accomplices, for the reason that popular slang is so extensively
comprehended as to make its publication of doubtful value as a new
contribution to our literature.
An analysis of the four hundred and thirty terms included in the
vocabulary reveals the interesting fact that criminal idiom is largely
an ingenious combination of epithet suggested by similitude and a
perverted construction of essential and accidental attributes of things
and powers to imply or express the things and actions themselves.
An occult jargon on its face, yet systematic enough when the key is
acquired.
Some of the terms seem to have been derived by simple partition of
legitimate English words, occasionally with the addition of euphonious
prefix or suffix. As a prime example of the transposition of an
attribute for the thing itself, consider what is perhaps the most
popular slang term in use today in the unregenerate world--“dope,” at
present signifying “news,” “intelligence,” or “meaning.” Originally
this word was derived from opium by partition, with the disguising
consonant “d” prefixed to the accented syllable. Amongst narcotic
habitues the most salient attribute of opium is stimulation of
loquacity, or imaginativeness or of exaggeration. In process of time
any of these powers came to characterize narcotic intoxication; thence
information on any subject was designated “dope.” The “dope sheet,” a
“line of dope,” are natural offshoots of this tendency to transpose
attribute into a new substantive. To philologists this noteworthy
observation should infallibly point out the utter lack of scientific
relation between an artificial sound--or visual--symbol and the thing,
quality or quantity symbolized thereby.
Without previous instruction a person gifted with intuition might
divine the signification of the majority of these terms in vogue by
weighing the context of the sentences in which they are included. Yet
a practical working knowledge of them should be made more available by
frequent reference to a complete list. The sole excuse for criminal
slang is the protection afforded by secrecy, which once destroyed
the slang is forced to die of neglect, though it will naturally be
superseded by evolutionary linguistic devices.
To fraternize with a secret order we must equip ourselves with a
knowledge of the ceremonies and aims as well as the selective means
of the secret fraternists. To combat criminals successfully it is
necessary to understand their complete vehicles of intercommunication,
else the investigator is unqualified to fraternize with them so as to
gain a fuller insight both into their actions and the living motives
concealed behind them. Unquestionably, every term in the vocabulary
is known to some officer of the law; unquestionably, too, every term
contained therein is understood by but very few individuals even
amongst criminals themselves. Therefore it would seem a distinct gain
to become familiar with them all.
Aided by a panoramic view of recorded crime in the last generation we
may roughly divide criminal offenses into the four great departments
of crimes against self, or reflexive crimes against personal character,
which have their fountain head in intemperance and gluttony; crimes
against sex, which have their basis in the emotions flowing out of
lust; crimes against property, fed by the sins of avarice or greed;
and the crimes of violence, growing out of anger. Of these four,
reflexive crimes and crimes of violence are distinctively psychological
and must be left to the individual for corrective solution. Crimes
against property and crimes of sexual depravity constitute the bulk of
costly and troublesome cases which choke the machinery of our legal
tribunals and necessitate a regrettable public tax for maintenance
of penal and detentional institutions. The chronic defectives who
most seriously menace the social body are comprised of prostitutes;
gamblers; nondescriptively larcenous tramps; yeggs; burglars; sneak
thieves; confidence men; dishonest solicitors; promoters and agents;
forgers; merchandise thieves; pickpockets; highway robbers; and
their accessories, the unscrupulous pawnbroker, the unrestrained
liquor dealer, and the drug dispenser. It goes without saying that
the volume and value of business transacted by these latter three
attest the stupendous proportions of the direct losses sustained by
the commonwealth through the misdirected energies of the principal
professional criminal classes.
From an economical standpoint the traffic of professional crime is
stupendous. We are mulcted some four hundred millions of dollars
annually by reason of the criminal element in the nation. A
conservative estimate of the number of active professional criminals of
high and low degree is probably 100,000. We have one uniformed police
officer for every thousand of population, and about one auxiliary
officer per thousand of population in addition. Here are 200,000 more
persons in the non-productive class. Criminal lawyers and criminal
court functionaries contribute another ratio of one to the thousand of
population, making a conservative total of 400,000 engaged in preying
upon and relieving the producers from distress occasioned by crimes
against person and property.
Admitting that the average income of the 300,000 police officers,
lawyers and court officials is about $1,200 per year, we have a
$360,000,000 overhead cost charged against production. The loss
sustained through the peculations of criminals and the cost of
detaining them is not less than another $88,000,000 per year, on
the estimated basis of $882 per year per criminal. A grand total of
$448,000,000!
Suppose the average age of the professional criminal to be 30 years. As
the average financial investment in an individual of that age in the U.
S. is $12,600, his productive capacity should be at least six per cent
on the investment (if possessed of industrial training), plus the cost
of human upkeep; which means a total of about $1,170 per year earning
capacity for the average individual. Or at six per cent interest
alone on the personality investment he represents an annual potential
addition of $757 to the national wealth. Add to this the cost to the
state of detaining him, say an average of $125 per year, and we have
$882 per year per prisoner. The actual loss in interest on criminal
personality investments is about $75,000,000 per 100,000 prisoners per
year; a waste that is perpetuated by the present judicial and penal
system.
Now, the average thief cannot steal $1,170 per year, nor even $757,
when account is taken of time lost in prison. The crux of the situation
seems to lie in the criminal’s lack of training in the useful arts,
together with moral delinquency. So far we have experimented chiefly
with two extremes in penology--employment of convicts for their
exploitation by selfish interests on the one hand, and unemployment
or else employment of such nature as tends to lower the standard of
efficiency of the individual on the other hand. The evolution of labor
unions has suppressed reform that makes for the criminal’s economical
independence; and yet the criminal element is recruited mainly
from the fourth estate. To date the history of penology shows some
development of apprehenders and keepers in the practical side of the
work, but at the prime expense of the apprehended. The producers at
large pay the interest on the debt, whilst the principal is shouldered
by the deficient themselves who are passing it along to the future
generations.
As to the moral aspect of the problem with which the professional
criminal confronts the nation, it must ultimately be determined by
psychology. Intemperance, greed, lust and anger; these are the radical
causes. Economical dependence is the first outgrowth of these known
qualities but unknown quantities.
How are we going to reduce the overshadowing difficulty? By
ostracism? By sterilization? By simple detaining repression without
corresponding elimination of root causes? As for ostracism, folly
flees a grave danger whilst moral courage fortified by intelligence
faces and overcomes it. Ostracism revives and perpetuates caste
divisions of society. Sterilization is as wrong in a larger moral
view as infanticide in a smaller; the theory has emanated from higher
intellectual, moral and spiritual darkness. It solves the criminal
problem like national debt solves the economical problem--saddles a
moral mortgage upon posterity. Detention without conferring assimilable
moral uplift and increased economical efficiency is a parallel for
the fabled delusion of the ostrich. Imprisonment as it obtains today
costs much and produces little or nothing save waste. The maintenance
of delinquents in rotting idleness or at labor which is subsequently
unprofitable to the prisoner from the standpoint of talent and
character development is an unbusiness-like as well as an inhumane
make-shift which reacts upon society like a boomerang.
But it was not the aim to air views on criminology and penology in a
preface, though it has seemed appropriate that the intelligence of
interested men and women should be appealed to, as the widespread use
of the following idioms has a deep significance. If this work achieves
no other result than this it should be regarded as well worth while.
C. R. HELLYER
City Detective Dept., Portland, Ore.
and LOUIS E. JACKSON,
Portland, Oregon, October 3rd, 1914.
* * * * * * * *
Should you find any terms missing from the following vocabulary which
in your opinion should be included in it you will confer a favor by
communicating same to the publisher.
W. H. THORNTON,
872 Brooklyn St., Portland, Ore.
A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang
Alphabetically Arranged
with Practical Examples
of Common Usages
[Illustration]
ADMAN, Noun
Current amongst literary confidence men. A fake advertising solicitor.
See “HUNDRED PER CENT.”
ANGEL, Noun
General usage. A financial backer. Derived from “good thing.”
ARM MAN, Noun
Current amongst “heavyweights.” A strong arm man; a holdup; a highway
robber. See “PUT-EM-UP.”
ARTILLERY, Noun
In general currency. Firearms of any description. See “ROD,” “ROSCOE,”
“SMOKE WAGON.”
B. A., Noun
Current amongst literary confidence men. A book agent who commonly
employs confidence methods for obtaining subscriptions or orders.
BADGE, Noun
Current amongst “hustlers” and the demi-monde. A badger; a blackmailer;
an extortioner. See “SHAKE DOWN.”
BALLY HOO, Noun
Current amongst exhibition and “flat-joint” grafters. A free
entertainment used for a decoy to attract customers. See “READER.”
BANNER, Noun
General currency. Used in the colloquialism “carrying the banner,”
meaning to walk the streets all night or otherwise endure the hardship
of loss of sleep.
BATCH, Noun
General currency. A number; a quantity; a lot; a great many.
BELCH, Noun
In general usage with all grafters. A protest; a complaint. See
“SQUAWK,” “ROAR,” “HOLLER.” Example: “When he blowed his dough he put
up an awful belch.”
BELCH, Verb
Idem Supra. Example: “He cannot stand the gaff without belching.” Also
used to denote the giving of information. See “COME THROUGH.”
BEN, Noun
General usage. An overcoat; derived from Benjamin, in reference to the
biblical coat of many colors.
BENNY, Noun
General usage. A sack coat; derived from Benjamin, some say the
biblical character, while others say the New York manufacturer of men’s
garments.
BENT, Adjective
General usage. Crooked; larcenous. See “TWISTED.” Example: “His kisser
shows that he’s bent.”
BIG TOP, Noun
Current amongst circus grafters and “open-air men.” The large tent used
by circuses; now evolved to include the meeting of the maximum exhibit
possible in any given case. Example: “I’m flopping at the big top,”
i. e., “I am rooming at the biggest hotel in town.”
BIT, Noun
General usage. A portion; a division; a share or a part of anything, as
profits or proceeds of a transaction. Example: “You’re supposed to be
in on anything that comes off, so you’re entitled to your bit.”
BIT, Noun
General usage, particularly amongst grafters who operate on the outside
of the law. A prison sentence. Example: “He did a bit in Joliet.”
Also a share. See “END.” Example: “If you don’t take a chance you’re
entitled to no bit.”
BLOCK, Noun
General usage. A watch. See “SUPER[1],” “TURNIP.” Example: “The wire
rung six blocks in the breaks,” i. e., “The tool (pickpocket) detached
six watches from their rings in the crowded exit.” As a noun it has
another meaning, i. e., a head. See “NOODLE.” Example: “He got his
block sapped,” i. e., struck.
[1] There is no entry for “SUPER” in the text.
BLOOMER, Noun
Current with genteel grafters. An error; a failure. Example: “We framed
wrong and scored a bloomer.”
BLOW, Verb
General usage. To cease; to get away; to lose; to miss something
absent. Examples: “Blow! here comes a bull.” “We blowed some kale that
night” (spent it). “Just as the touch was scored the boob blowed his
poke.” “A shilliber’s work is to cop and blow,” i. e., to take and give
in a gambling, ostensibly winning and losing in good faith from and to
a confederate.
BLOW CARD, Noun
Current amongst gamblers and genteel grafters. Any useless thing or
condition; financial embarrassment; the last card; the final play or
thing in any series. Examples: “Don’t connect with this wop, he is on
the blow card,” i. e., broke. “Pull this one off and call it the blow
card.”
BOOB, Noun
In general usage amongst all sophisticated classes. An inferior in any
specific sense; a victim; an uninitiated person when used by a “gonif.”
Derived from booby.
BOOSTER, Noun
Used by confidential grafters. One who endorses a person, thing or
action of immoral nature either by complementary action or by moral
support; a helper; a confederate.
BOOSTER, Noun
In general currency amongst “gonifs.” A shoplifter; a thief who
operates in merchandise stores in daytime. A “Boost” is an assistance;
“The Boost” is the shoplifting profession.
BREAKS, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. Any place of exit where throngs of people
pour through en stream, as from a theatre, from a convention or other
popular gathering, or from a street or railroad car or from a boat, all
of which afford facilities for the pickpocket to operate under cover
and in the press of unusual excitement. Example: “The guns are rooting
into the swell mob at the Grand Opera breaks.”
BREAK UP, Noun
Current amongst thieves who specialize in plunder or loot. Melted
silver or gold. See “MELT.”
BREEZE, Noun
General usage. Loquacity; guile; “hot air;” “bull con.”
BREEZE, Verb
General usage. To deceive; to beguile; to occupy one’s attention; to
descant loquaciously. Example: “She breezed everybody on the line.”
Also to move on, to leave, to come in or go out. See “BLOW.”
BREECH (britch), Noun
Current amongst pickpockets chiefly. The rear pants pockets, designated
right and left breech, in contradistinction to the front pants pockets,
for which see “KICK.” Example: “Fan his right breech for a leather,”
i. e., “Feel of his right hip pocket for a pocketbook.”
BROAD, Noun
Current amongst genteel grafters chiefly. A female confederate; a
female companion; a woman of loose morals. See “DONY,” “FLUZIE,”
“MUFF[2].” Broad is derived from the far-fetched metaphor of “meal
ticket,” signifying a female provider for a pimp, from the fanciful
correspondence of a meal ticket to a railroad or other ticket, which
latter originally was exclusively used by “gonifs” to indicate
“broad,” or a conductor’s hat check. Also a playing card from the
deck of fifty-two. A “three-card monte man” is a “BROAD SPIELER”;
“Tipping the broads” is riding on a purchased transportation ticket;
“Beating the broads” is corrupting the conductor or other collecting
functionaire of a transportation line.
[2] There is no entry for “MUFF” in the text.
BUCK, Noun
Current generally. A dollar. Example: “They tax you one buck for a room
without a bath at the cheapest hotel in the burg.”
BUFFALO, Noun
General usage in the northern states. A negro. See “DINGE.”
BUFFALO, Verb
General usage. To bluff; to intimidate; to frighten. Example: “The dick
buffaloed him into tipping his plant.”
BUG, Noun
Used by alms beggars. A fearful looking sore artificially produced to
simulate a burn or scald by the use of Spanish blister.
BULL, Noun
General usage. Misrepresentation; a lie; deception. Probably derived
from the financial term bull, which in polite and legal circles
signifies inflation, optimism. See “BREEZE.” Also used to indicate an
officer of the law whose function is to apprehend or arrest, whether a
constable, marshal, sheriff, detective or policeman.
BULL CON, Noun
Supra idem.
BUMP, BUMP OFF, Verb
Current amongst heavyweights and desperate characters chiefly, though
understood by grafters generally. To kill; reflectively it signifies
suicide. Examples: “He bumped himself off when he saw that the game was
up.” “He copped a cuter and got bumped making a get-away.”
BUNCO, Noun
General currency. Deceit. Derived from “BUNCOMBE.”
BUNK, Noun
In general currency. Deceit; ostentation. Derived by corruption of form
while retaining the meaning of “Bunco,” a contraction of buncombe.
Example: “If you fall for this bunk you’re a simp.”
BUNK, Verb
General usage. To employ misrepresentation; to defraud; to cheat; to
establish confidential relations with intent to abuse the influence so
acquired. Example: “The frame-up in the play was to bunk the sucker
with protection and scare team work.”
BURNEYS, Noun
Current amongst “hop-heads,” dope fiends. A catarrh powder containing
an illicit proportion of cocaine, used as a snuff, administered with a
combination detachable rubber and glass blowing tube.
BUZZARD, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. A timid or amateur or low life “gun” who
operates on “molls,” women. Example: “The moll buzzards tore into the
jam at the market house on Saturday night and glommed a batch of pokes.”
BUZZER, Noun
Current mainly in western circles. An officer’s badge or star, the
insignia of authority. Example: “Who are you? says he. For reply I
flashed my buzzer.” Derived, doubtless, from the metal disc toy with
starlike points which revolves by pulling crossed strings which pass
through it.
CAN, Noun
General usage. A place of confinement; a prison; a cell. A practical
metaphor for a receptacle designed to confine or bottle humans. Also a
lavatory, toilet, urinal. Example: “He rumbled and made the can.” See
“CANISTER.”
CAN, Verb
General usage. To discharge; to eliminate. Derived from the prankish
cruelty of tieing a tin can to a dog’s tail, whose effectual purpose
is to get rid of a useless or undesirable object. Example: “He made so
many bad breaks we had to can him.”
CANISTER, Noun
Current chiefly amongst prison habitues. A prison. Also in use amongst
crooks who resort to the use of weapons, denoting a firearm. Example:
“He’ll stick his hands up if you flash the canister.”
CANNON, Noun
General currency. A revolver. In pickpocket parlance it signifies a
pickpocket of indefinite order. See “GUN,” “GONIF.”
CASES, Noun
General usage. Observation; scrutiny; survey. Example: “Keep cases
on his actions and you will learn his motive.” Also an ultimate, a
finality, the last of a series of things or actions. Example: “He
hasn’t turned a trick for so long that he is down to cases.” The term
is derived from gambler’s parlance; in faro bank the recording of
cards turned out of the dealer’s box is denominated “keeping cases,”
whilst the last card to remain in the box is called the “case card.”
“Down to cases” is used to signify that the cards are all dealt and
played; the money or resources at an end.
CASE, Verb
General usage. To watch; to observe; to scrutinise.
CAT HOP, Noun
Current amongst gamblers. See “KITTY HOP.”
CENTURY, Noun
General usage. A hundred; a hundred dollar bill.
CHIP, Noun
Current amongst burglars and store prowlers. A cash-box; a till; a cash
drawer without belling device. A cash receptacle with belling device is
called a “combination chip,” or a “damper,” or a “dinger.” Example: “He
copped a heel on the chip and glommed a century.”
CHIV, Noun
In general use amongst yeggs and rough-neck criminals. A knife; a
sharp-edged tool or weapon. Derived from the French word “chef,” by
reason of a cook’s use of a carving knife, though the French term for
knife is “canif.”
CHIV, Verb
Supra idem. To cut; to slash; used only in regard to an attack upon a
human. Example: “Beware of that geezer that he does not chiv you.”
CHOP, Verb
General usage. To quit; to cease.
CHUMP, Noun
General usage. An unsophisticated individual; a victim; an inferior; an
“angel”; a “captain.” See “JOHN.”
CLATTER, Noun
General usage. A patrol wagon.
CLAW, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. The “tool”; the “jerve”; the “wire”; or
the expert operator in a “gun mob” who lifts the money and valuable
collateral from the victim’s person. Example: “Our mob is working under
one of the speediest claws in the country.”
CLAW, Verb
General usage. To snatch; to appropriate; to annex.
CLEAN, Adjective
General usage. A state of financial embarrassment; exhausted supply of
a given property. Example: “He wasn’t very dirty when he got in town,
but he is thoroughly clean now.”
CLEAN, Verb
General usage. To take all one possesses of a given commodity; to
deplete one’s assets. Example: “He headed in wrong with that bunch and
got cleaned.” Also used by exponents of the art of self-defense to
indicate the infliction of defeat upon an opponent. Example: “He made a
pass at me and I cleaned him in one, two, three.”
CLOUT, Verb
In currency amongst the plunderbund. To purloin any kind of valuables
in any manner.
COME-ON, Noun
General usage. A prospective victim; a “steered” prospect.
COME THROUGH, Verb
General usage. To give up, to deliver, to surrender any secret
information or any material goods demanded. Example: “After I showed
him the situation was in our hands he came through with the dope.”
In pickpocket parlance “to come through” describes a function of one
of the “wire’s” “stalls,” consisting of a frontal attack or sudden
onslaught upon an intended victim with the purpose of bewildering the
latter in order that the “wire” may operate upon the victim from the
rear; or, the relative positions may be reversed, when the “stall”
should “come through” from the rear. Example: “Precede this mark
through the car door, wheel and come through just as he descends the
steps.”
CON, Noun
General usage. A convict; a lie; a misrepresentation. See “BUNK.”
CON, Verb
General usage. To ingratiate; to establish confidential relations. See
“BUNK.”
COP, Noun
General currency. A policeman.
COP, Verb
General usage. See “CLOUT.” Cop is an old Cockney flash-word and
signifies capture; conquer. Example: “Booze and the blowers (women)
cops the lot.”
COPPER, Noun
Current amongst prison habitues. The commutation or good time allowed
prisoners for good behavior. Example: “You grab one month copper off
the first year.”
COSE, Noun
General usage. A five-centpiece. “Cosan” is a ten-centpiece.
CRACK, Verb
General usage. To talk. For example see “EYE FULL.”
CRAB, Noun
General usage. A grouchy, stingy person; of inferior quality in
intellectuality or habits. See “PIKER[3].”
[3] There is no entry for “PIKER” in the text.
CRAB, Verb
General usage. To spoil or ruin or render impossible any plan of
action. Example: “This fink crabbed the play and we went on the nut for
a double sawbuck.”
CRAP, Noun
General usage. Treachery. See “BUNK,” “BULL,” “CON.”
CREEP, Verb
Current amongst prowlers and panel-joint workers. To use stealth; to
crawl.
CREEP, Noun
Current amongst crooked pimps. A creeper, a crawler who searches the
clothes of a victim while the latter is abed with the creep’s paramour.
CROKE, Verb
General usage. Passively it means to die; actively it is used as an
elegant expression for murder. Examples: “He croked himself with
bichloride.” “The copper got croked in the jackpot.”
CRIMPY, Adjective
Used by yeggs principally. Cold, applied to the weather.
CROKER, Noun
General usage. A physician.
CROSSLOTS, Adverb
In use amongst yeggs, hobos and the meandering unemployed.
Cross-country; away from frequented routes of traffic; by star route.
Example: “In the get-away they hammed twenty miles cross lots.”
CROW, Adjective
Current amongst shoplifters and pennyweighters. Poor; mean; trivial;
insignificant; worthless. Example: “There’s a bale of slum in the
joint, but it’s all crow.”
CROWNS, Noun
Used by drug fiends. Same as “BURNEYS.”
CRUSH, Noun
General usage. A forcible entry or exit. Also as verb.
CUT TO THE BREAKS, Verb
Current amongst gamblers and ready-money grafters. Reducing action to
its lowest terms; displaying only the essential. Example: “The mark
stalled to the can, gunned his soft and cut to the breaks,” i. e., “The
victim retired to the lavatory, inspected his bank-roll and separated
the amount required to finance the intended operation.”
CUTER, Noun
Used by gamblers and western criminals. A surprise; a fool; a josh; “a
boob.” For example of first-cited value see “BUMP.”
DAMPER, Noun
Used by prowlers and daylight “heels.” A combination cash drawer or
register. See “CHIP.”
DANGLER, Noun
Current amongst jewelry thieves and those who commit larceny from the
person. A watch fob; an earring; a pendant; any article of jewelry
which swings free at one end.
DEAD ONE, Noun
General usage. One who is useless in any specific case; out of funds.
DERRICK, Noun
Current amongst shoplifters chiefly. A “hoister”; a “lifter”; a
“booster”; an “elevator.” Example: “The boosters are making a plunge
with a derrick ben.” In this sense it is used as an adjective, but can
be transposed for “boosters.”
DICK, Noun
General usage. A detective. See “RICHARD.”
DINGE, Noun
General usage. A negro. See “BUFFALO.”
DIP, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. See “CLAW”; “WIRE”; “JERVE”; “TOOL”;
“GUN”; “CANNON”; “GONIF.” A common term for a pickpocket of any degree.
DISE, Noun
Current amongst store burglars, shoplifters, and box-car thieves or
“RAT WORKERS” mainly. A contraction of merchandise. Loot; plunder;
effects that can readily be disposed of in the market as new goods.
Example: “There’s a mob riding the rattlers between here and the
junction who have a dise plant stashed (cached) in the jungles.”
DONY, Noun
Current amongst pimps and free lovers chiefly. A female member of the
demi-monde. See “HOOKER”; “JANE”; “FILLY”; “MUFF[4].” Derived from the
Hebrew “yoni,” the female sex organ.
[4] There is no entry for “MUFF” in the text.
DOSS, Noun
General currency. A place to sleep; a bed. See “KIP”; “FLOP.” Example:
“Stake me to two-bits to get a doss.” Apparently from the French “je
dors,” I sleep.
DOUBLE, Noun
General usage. A conspiracy to deceive or defraud a victim; the
“double-cross.” Example: “He got the double.”
DUCAT, Noun
Current amongst genteel grafters. A ticket of admission or
transportation. See “BROAD.” Example: “The ducat box was crushed last
night,” i. e., “The ticket office was burglarized.”
DUCK, Verb
General currency. To retire; to leave; to flee; to disappear.
DUKE, Noun
Used by gamblers and genteel grafters. A fist; a hand; glad hand;
a hand in a card game. “Reading the duke” is “fortune-telling by
palmistry”; “tipping your duke” is “betraying your intention”;
“cropping his duke” is reading an opponent’s hand by trickery in a card
game.
DUKIE, Noun
Used by yeggmen and hobos. A hand-out, or donation of cold victuals to
a beggar. See “LUMP.”
DUMMY, Noun
Current amongst yeggmen, hobos and prison habitues. Bread. See “PUNK.”
DUMP, Noun
General usage. A rendezvous; an establishment of any kind; a hangout; a
joint; a meeting place.
DRAG, Noun
General currency. An influence with one in authority; a “pull”; a main
thoroughfare in any community; the main street. See “STEM.” Examples:
“The boys are pivoting on the main drag,” i. e., begging on the street;
“The muffs are cruising on the drag tonight,” i. e., soliciting on the
street. Amongst female impersonators on the stage and men of dual sex
instincts “drag” denotes female attire donned by a male. Example: “All
the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight.” Also
an inhalation of smoke, tobacco or opium.
DROP, Noun
General currency. An apprehension in criminal action. See “FALL”;
“SNEEZE”; “RUMBLE”; “TUMBLE.” Also used as a verb to express the action
corresponding to a similar state. Example of the latter: “The tribe
dropped a man in the day’s work,” i. e., lost one by arrest. “We had
to drop a stall for missing too many meets,” i. e., discharged him.
Command or control by reason of advantage in an exigency when shooting
may be expected.
EIGHT DIE CASE, Noun
Current amongst open-air or “sure-thing” grafters. See “FLAT JOINT.” A
glass showcase containing numbered prizes, as jewelry or gewgaws, for
which eight dice are thrown by players, the totality of spots on the
eight dice corresponding with the numbers on the prizes. The secret of
this graft consists in the dealer’s fraudulent counting of the spots
arbitrarily and disarranging them before the victim can finish the
count.
ELBOW, Noun
General usage in cosmopolitan centers. A detective. See “RICHARD”;
“DICK.”
ELEVATOR, Noun
In shoplifter’s and holdup men’s parlance. A lifter; a booster; a
hoister; a “stick-up” man. See “PUT-EM-UP.”
END, Noun
General currency. A share; a portion; a division. See “BIT.”
EYE (The), Noun
General currency amongst long-odds criminals. The Pinkerton Detective
Agency; an operative of the Pinkerton Agency. Example: “Blow this
joint; it’s protected by the Eye.”
EYE FULL, Noun
General usage. The object of scrutiny or of attentive observation. See
“STRETCHING.” Example: “Nix Crackin’! The mark on your left is getting
an eye full.”
FALL, Noun
General currency. An arrest. See “RUMBLE”; “DROP.” Example: “He was
soused when he attempted to pull off the stunt and got a fall.” Used
as a verb, “to fall for” is to be deceived by; to be taken in; to be
influenced.
FALL DOUGH, Noun
Current amongst criminals who operate under clique or fraternal
organization. A fund kept in reserve for protection, to be expended in
procuring legal representation, bail, or bribery of officers or court
functionaries. Example: “No one can join out unless he puts up five
centuries for fall dough.”
FALL GUY, Noun
General currency. A scapegoat; a victim. See “FALL.”
FAN, Verb
In pickpocket parlance. To surreptitiously feel a victim’s pockets, or
inadvertently brush the person for the purpose of locating an object
sought, as pocketbook, watch or weapon. Example: “Fan the pratt for a
poke.”
FIEND, Noun
Used by narcotic habitues chiefly. One addicted to the use of drugs, as
a “hop fiend,” a “dope fiend.”
FILL, Verb
General currency amongst gang criminals. To join a mob, as of guns,
or of confidence men, and thus fill a vacancy in the organization.
Example: “If you know a good man who can make a fill steer him in.”
FILLY, Noun
General usage. A young woman of questionable morals, not necessarily
criminal by choice but potentially so. See “SKIRT”; “JANE”; “MUFF[5].”
[5] There is no entry for “MUFF” in the text.
FINGER, Noun
Current amongst criminals who localize more or less extensively. See
“STOOL[6].” An informer; an investigator for officers. Example: “He got
the push sneezed by mixing with a finger.”
[6] There is no entry for “STOOL” in the text.
FINGER PRINT, Noun
Current amongst confidence crooks who specialize in paper securities or
signed orders for merchandise or service. A signature; an endorsement.
Example: “Put your finger print on this line.” See “JOHN HANCOCK.”
FINK, Noun
Current chiefly in eastern criminal circles. An unreliable confederate
or incompetent sympathizer. See “CRAB”; “LOB.” Example: “We staked him
to a day’s work for a try-out, but he proved to be a fink.”
FISH EYE, Noun
General currency. A diamond. See “PROP.”
FIX, Noun
Used in general criminal parlance. A condition of security where
grafters may operate with impunity. Example: “Don’t pay any attention
to the bulls; it’s a fix.”
FIXER, Noun
General currency. One who acts as go-between for thieves and bribe
takers. Example: “If you get a rumble, send for Jones, the mouthpiece;
he’s a sure-shot fixer and can square anything short of murder.”
FLAGGINGS, Noun
Used by yeggs and hobos. Meat of any description, usually applied to
cold victuals. Example: “If you are not a vegetarian, stay away from
that man’s burg, for flaggings is scarce.”
FLAP, Noun
Current amongst pimps and criminals who are contemptuous of female
values. An opprobrious epithet for loose women. Also employed to
designate the female sex organ.
FLASH, Verb
General currency. To show; to exhibit; to submit an object for
inspection.
FLAT JOINT, Noun
Current amongst open-air sure-thing men who operate at circus
gatherings, fairs, carnivals, any gaming establishment where fortune
is presumed to wait upon skill combined with risk. The “TIVOLI”; the
“SWINGING BALL”; the “SPINDLE”; the “PINCH WHEEL”; the “PADDLES”; the
“SHELLS”; “THREE CARD MONTE”; the “EIGHT DIE CASE”; the “FISH POND”;
the “DISCS” are all grafting flat joints. The term is derived from the
essentiality in all of these crooked devices of a counter or other flat
area across or upon which the swindle may be conducted.
FLIM, Noun
Current in polite criminal circles. A swindle; a fraud. See “BUNK”;
“TWISTED.” Derived from “flim-flam.”
FLIM, Verb
Supra idem. To swindle; to defraud. Used especially by short-change
experts. See “LAYING”; “FLOPPER.”
FLOATER, Noun
General currency in police circles. A suspended sentence; a mandatory
order to quit a community or locality. Example: “The rap wasn’t strong
enough, so they took a floater.”
FLOP, Noun
Current amongst yeggs, dope fiends, prison habitues and to some extent
in general use by initiates in the mysteries of informal annexation. A
bed; a place to sit, recline or lie down. Also used by short changers
as a synonym of “flim.”
FLOP, Verb
Same as above. To sit or lie down. Example: “Let’s flop here on the
grass and pound our ear.” Also used by money changers to signify fraud
by confusion. Example: “There’s a muff in that candy store that can be
flopped because she can’t count change.”
FLOPPER, Noun
In general use by money changers, switchers (substituters);
flim-flammers. See “LAYING.” Example: “He calls himself a star flopper,
but he’s crabbing a string of good lays by hyping with a deuce where a
saw buck could be changed just as readily.” See “HYPER.”
FRAME, Noun
General currency. A prearranged plan of action; a secret implying
sinister intention; a “frame-up.” The contraction is used for greater
secretiveness, as is the case with all terms which have become the
common property of both criminals and their enemies. Example: “What’s
the frame for putting this one over? The lemon.”
FRISK, Noun
General usage. A search; a “shake-down”; an examination of the contents
of one’s pockets, of a room, of receptacles or of a community. Example:
“Give him a frisk and see if he has a rod.”
FRISK, Verb
Supra idem. Example: “Frisk everybody that enters the hall.”
FRONT, Noun
Some general currency, but used mainly by crooks whose operations
require a shield or distraction. An auxiliary defense; a “stall”;
a secondary who interposes his person or contributes overtly to a
surreptitious action. Example: “Give me a front here till I nick this
leather.”
FRONT, Verb
See above. To hide; to conceal a principal in open criminal action. See
“STALL.” Example: “Front me out of this joint and don’t lose my left
wing.”
FLUZIE, Noun
Current in the cosmopolitan demi-monde. A woman; a questionable female
character. See “DONY”; “HOOKER.”
GAFF, Noun
In general currency. An offensive action, thing or condition, of vague,
complex or undetermined meaning. It is variously employed or construed
to mean defeat, punishment, failure, or the instruments of these.
Example: “There’ll be no hop-heads joining out with this mob, for they
can’t stand the gaff.”
GANDER, Noun
General currency. An inquisitorial glance; a searching look; an
impertinent gazing or staring. Also the simple act of looking or
seeing. See “RUBBER[7]”; “EYE FULL.” Example: “Take a gander at this dump
as we pass, and don’t get the eye of the guinea inside.”
[7] There is no entry for “RUBBER” in the text.
GAP, Noun
Supra idem. General currency. Used also as a verb.
GASH, Noun
General currency. An invidious term for woman; synonymous with flap,
which see.
GAT, Noun
General usage. A gun; a pistol; a firearm. See “ROD”; “ROSCOE.” Derived
from “Gatling.”
GAZABO, Noun
In general use, but originating in the East. A man; any man without
regard to qualities.
GAZUNY, Noun
Supra idem. Current in ultra slangy circles. A man.
GEEZER, Noun
General circulation. A drink of liquor; a man (contemptuously).
GINK, Noun
General currency. Synonymous with “gazabo,” “gazuny,” “gink[8].”
[8] “Gink” cannot be a synonym for itself. The author probably intended
“geezer.”
GLIM, Noun
General usage. A light; a lamp; a match. Also used as a verb,
signifying illuminated. Example: “Go and take a pike (peek) at the dump
and see if it’s glimmed.”
GLIMS, Noun
General currency. A pair of spectacles or nose glasses. See
“SCENERIES”; “RINGERS.”
GLOM, Verb
General currency. To grab; to snatch; to take; implying violence.
Example: “Glom this short and drop off two blocks below.”
GOBBLED, Verb, Past Part.
General currency. Arrested. See “NAILED.”
GONGER, Noun
Current amongst opium smokers and drug fiends. An opium pipe. Also used
in the diminutive form of “GONGERINE.”
GONIF, Noun
General currency. A thief of any class; a pickpocket. The term is taken
intact from the Hebrew and is used mostly by pickpockets. See “GUN”;
“CANNON”; “BUZZARD.” Also a verb, to rob.
GOOSEBERRY, Noun
Current amongst yeggs, hobos and meanderers. A clothesline; laundry
hung up to dry. Example: “He prowled a gooseberry for a skin.”
GOPHER, Noun
Current amongst yeggs chiefly. A safe; a strong box. See “PETE.”
GRAB, Verb
General currency. Passively it signifies arrested; actively it
signifies the imperfect past action of arresting or seizing. Example:
“Steer clear of the tip: It’s made and you are liable to get grabbed.”
See “GLOMMED”; “SNEEZED.”
GRIFT, Noun
General usage. Graft; an opportunity for plying criminal talents.
Example: “How’s grift on the shorts in the winter? Crow. Too many togs.”
GROUCH BAG, Noun
Current amongst yeggs and western thieves. A place, as a pocket or
receptacle, for concealing money or valuables; a reserve fund held in
secret to the exclusion of fraternists. Example: “He’s under cover with
a grouch bag.”
GUFF, Noun
Current amongst yeggs, sailors, and old-timers. Palaver; conversation;
a contumelious synonym for egotism. See “BREEZE.”
GUINEA, Noun
General usage. In the sense of a man it is synonymous with “gazabo,”
“gink,” “mark”; it also means an Italian, as well as Europeans
generally.
GUMP, Noun
Current amongst yeggs, hobos and peripatetics generally. A chicken; a
fowl. Examples: “We’re going down in the jungles and have a gump stew.”
GUM SHOE, Noun
General currency. A detective; a silent trailer. See “PUSSY FOOT.”
GUN, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets chiefly, though enjoying familiar usage in
general circles. A pickpocket. See “CANNON”; “GONIF.”
GUN, Verb
General usage. To watch; to scrutinize. See “GANDER”; “GAP.” Used both
as verb and noun to express action or thing. Examples: “Nix! There’s a
dick on the corner gunning us.” “He’s giving us a gun.”
GUN MAN, Noun
General currency. A gun fighter.
GUNNELS, Noun
Used by all classes of criminals who beat their way on trains. The
curved trusses extending from end to end underneath both freight and
passenger cars. Example: “The only way you can ride this rattler
tonight is to make the gunnels or the rods.”
GUNSHEL, Noun
Current amongst yeggs chiefly, A boy; a youth; a neophyte of trampdom.
Example: “The tribe’s got a gunshel pivoting on the stem with a bug,”
i. e., “The gang of tramps have sent a boy up on the main street to beg
under pretense of having a wounded or disabled arm or limb.” The term
“bug” is derived from railroad parlance, denoting a signal attached
to the front of the engine as an indication of the train’s nature,
attracting attention.
GUTS, Noun
General currency. Nerve; “sand”; ability to withstand the most
powerful emotions. A metaphor derived from the common experience of
depressing sensation concomitant with an inrush of the violent emotions
of fear, horror or other moral obstructions. To have “guts” is to
be unencumbered with conscientious scruples relative to the object
contemplated. Amongst yeggs and others familiar with clandestine
railroading the “guts” signifies the various constructive parts
underneath a car, or the hidden essentials of rolling stock. Example:
“We’ll ride the guts tonight over this division,” i. e., the gunnels,
rods, brake-beams, trucks.
GUY, Noun
Eastern currency mainly. A man. “TO GUY” is to ridicule.
GYP, Noun
Current in polite circles. The act of short-changing; a duplicity;
a defrauding by substitution; an action that belies a professed
sincerity. Example: “Look out for this guy, he’s a clever agent to slip
you a gyp.” Derived from the popular experience with thieving Gypsies.
GYP, Verb
Some general currency, but especially significant amongst short
changers. To flim-flam; to cheat by means of guile and manual
dexterity. See “HYPE”; “FLOP”; “LAYING.” Example: “Gyp this boob with a
deuce.” Also used by “flat-joint” grafters, comprehending the general
meaning of face-to-face criminal transactions.
HABIT, Noun
Current amongst dope fiends. Necessity for opiates; a craving; the
condition produced by habitual indulgence in drugs. See “YEN YEN.”
Example: “I must drop into the hotel donegan (lavatory) and fire (take
a hypodermic injection), for I feel my habit coming on.”
HACK, Noun
Current amongst yeggmen and prowlers, in general. A night watchman; a
night policeman or marshal. Most usually it signifies the watchman of
a building. Used as a verb in the past participle it describes the
accomplished function of a night watchman. Example: “The joint’s hacked
but not kipped,” i. e., watched but not occupied by a sleeper.
HAM, Verb
General usage. To walk. Example: “If we get a tumble, it’s a case of
ham.”
HANDLES, Noun
Limited usage, chiefly by criminals who understand more or less about
physiognomical description and disguises. Side-whiskers; “mutton chops.”
HANKY PANK, Noun
Current in polite slangy circles. Insincere or trifling small talk;
flattery; garrulousness. See “BREEZE”; “BULL.”
HARDWARE, Noun
Current chiefly amongst merchandise thieves. Weapons; knives; razors;
tools and paraphernalia used by safecrackers and forcible entry
prowlers. Used by holdup men to signify a weapon. Example: “Fan him for
hardware.”
HARNESS, Noun
General currency. A uniform; a shoplifter’s equipment for concealing
merchandise. A “harness bull” is the commonest form of the term’s
use, signifying a uniformed policeman in contradistinction to a plain
clothes officer or detective.
HARP, Noun
General currency. An Irishman; used principally to designate the raw
type.
HARPOON, Noun
General currency. A metaphor for lampoon; used as a verb it signifies
to “give a person the worst of it.” See “GAFF.”
HATCH, Noun
General usage. A calaboose; a prison; police station; a jail. Derived
from the nautical term “booby-hatch.” See “CAN”; “WICKY.” Example: “The
only way he can be sprung is to crush the hatch.”
HEAVY WEIGHT, Noun
Current amongst long-odds crooks. A desperate thief; a husky capable
of delivering a dangerous attack in the event of personal encounter; a
yegg; a burglar; a “stick-up man.”
HEEL, Noun
General currency. An incompetent; an undesirable; an inefficient or
pusillanimous pretender to sterling criminal qualifications. See
“FINK”; “DEAD ONE”; “CRAB”; “LOB.” Used also in the sense of “sneak” as
noun and verb, to stalk.
HEP, Noun
General circulation. Sapiency; understanding; “next”; “on.” Derived
from the name of a fabulous detective who operated in Cincinnati, the
legend has it, who knew so much about criminality and criminals that
his patronymic became a byword for the last thing in wisdom of illicit
possibilities. Example: “Chop the skirmish; he’s hep.”
HICKS, Noun
Current amongst “sure-thing” grafters. The walnut husks used in the
three shell and pea game. Example: “This proposition is as sure as fate
and as strong as the hicks.”
HIP, Noun
General currency. A burden; an attachment; a responsibility; an
incubus. Examples: “I can’t see you tonight; I’ve got a Jane on my
hip.” “What’s the use of taking more on your hip?” Also used to denote
being shadowed or followed. Example: “Don’t round, we’ve got somebody
on our hip.” Always used colloquially. Also current amongst opium
smokers, designating the act of lying on the side to smoke the “pipe.”
HIRAM, Noun
Current chiefly amongst yeggmen. A metaphor taken from masonry to
signify initiation into the secrets of the yegg profession. A synonym
for yegg, adopted when the latter term acquired too much notoriety.
Example: “By way of the Hiram!” An exclamatory challenge or password
used for a “feeler” to probe the state of mind of the encountered one.
HOBO, Noun
General usage. A tramp, not necessarily of criminal tendencies.
HOIST, Noun
Current amongst shoplifters mainly. The profession of shoplifting. See
“BOOSTER”; “DERRICK.” Example: “What’s his grift? He’s on the hoist.”
HOOKS, Noun
Current amongst shoplifters. A set of steel hooks shaped like the
letter “U,” fastened through the cloth of a heavy “boosting ben” under
the armpits; concealed from the outside view by a pad of cloth similar
in pattern to the cloth of the coat and having the inner arm of the
hook filed to a needle-like sharpness; upon the hook merchandise may
be hung, or slung around the operator’s back and suspended from both
hooks. When not in use the hooks’ sharp points are sheathed in cork
to prevent injury to the person. They are instantaneously detachable
and may be “sloughed” by an expert without detection. “Hooks” also
signifies the worst of a bargain. “HOOK” means a thief; “HOOKY” is
larcenous.
HOOKER, Noun
General currency. A prostitute. See “DONY”; “FLUZIE.”
HOLLER, Noun
General currency. A protest; a vehement refutation. See “BELCH”;
“WOLF”; “SQUAWK.” Example: “Did the sucker make a holler? Sure he
rumbled the touch before we blowed the joint and made a roar.”
HOMBRE, Noun
Western usage. A man. From the Spanish for man.
HOPSCOTCH, Verb
General usage. To jump or travel about from place to place.
HOOP, Noun
General currency, though used most frequently by “short-odds” grafters
who practice merchandising by unlicensed solicitation. A finger
ring. A “phony hoop” is a gold-plated ring. Grafters of mediocre
intellectuality seek protection from apprehension for vagrancy by
carrying a stock of “hoops,” “glims” and “supers,” or “blocks”
(watches). Not to be confounded with the jovial exclamation, “Whoops!
my dear,” of fairies and theatrical characters.
HOP MERCHANT, Noun
Current amongst drug habitues. A dispenser of opium and opiates.
Usually applied to drug peddlers who have no established headquarters,
but are itinerant.
HUCKS, Noun
Current amongst “sure-thing” grafters. The walnut shells used in the
three shell game. See “HICKS”; “NUTS.” Example: “We’ll make the ball
game on Sunday and play the hucks.”
HUMP, Noun
Current amongst prison habitues. The middle of a term; the half-way
point in a prison sentence. Example: “How long have you got yet on your
bit? I’m just over the hump.”
HUNCH, Noun
General usage. An inspiration; an intuition; an “office.”
HUNDRED PER CENT, Noun
Used by sure-thing admen, by confidence grafters who maintain the
plausible appearance of giving value for moneys received, but who in
reality give nothing. Fake advertising is the principal hundred per
cent graft.
HUNKIE, Noun
Current in localities where North European laborers abound. A
corruption of Hungarian, but employed to signify a Continental European
who is unwashed and unnaturalized.
HUSTLER, Noun
General currency. A grafter; a pimp who steals betimes. The genteel
thief is designated a “hustler.”
HYPER, Noun
Current amongst money-changers. A flim-flammer; a layer of currency,
that is, one who makes a purchase and tenders a bank note and after
receiving proper change pretends to discover the exact amount of
change required to pay for the goods purchased and thereupon declares
his preference for the bank note rather than for the change. In the
exchange he strives to confuse the obliging changemaker for the
purpose of obtaining an excess of his proper due. Or, the “hyper”
requests a bank note for subsidiary coin and upon being accommodated
ostentatiously seals the bank note in an addressed envelope. The
merchant discovers that the subsidiary coin is less than the stated
amount and demands his bank note, whereupon a substitute envelope
is tendered by the “hyper” with a request that he hold it until the
“hyper” returns to his home and secures the additional small change.
There are other systems of the “hyper” in vogue, but the principle is
the same in all.
IN DUTCH, Adverb
General usage. Mistaken; in trouble. See “JACKPOT.”
JAB, Noun
Current amongst morphine and cocaine fiends. A hypodermic injection.
JACKPOT, Noun
General currency. A dilemma; a difficult strait; a retribution;
trouble; an arrest. See “JINX”; “IN DUTCH.” Example: “Where’s Joe? He
pulled a raw-jaw stunt and made a jackpot.”
JAKE, Noun
General currency amongst cosmopolitan crooks. The state of knowing;
familiarity with a secret or a scheme or meaning. See “HEP”; “JOE.”
Example: “You’re making a boob out of yourself; he’s Jake to the whole
works.” As an adjective “jake” means good; satisfactory; acceptable;
all-right.
JAMB, Noun
Current chiefly amongst yeggs and prowlers. The state of being closed,
as a store or house; locked up; inaccessible. See “Sloughed,” not in
the sense of “sluffed” as the same word is sometimes used, though with
the latter pronunciation while retaining the former spelling. Example:
“The front’s in the jamb; try the rear.” Also used to signify trouble
in the sense of “JACK POT.”
JANE, Noun
General currency. A woman, though not in any opprobrious sense; the
sexual complement of the term “JOHN,” a man.
JERVE, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. A vest pocket; the “tool”; the “wire”; the
“claw” in a gun mob. Examples: “Go after the left jerve for a bundle of
scratch.” “The jerve was nailed bang to rights coming through the tip.”
JESSIE, Noun
General currency. A bluff; a threat. Example: “He rang in a jessie and
got away with it.”
JIG, Noun
General currency. An affair; a misfortune; a mistake. Example: “He used
bad judgment and got into a jig.”
JIGGER, Noun
Current amongst yeggs and tramps. A fake wound, burn, scald, or other
crippled condition. See “BUG”; “P. P.” Example: “They’re all jigger
bums.”
JIGGER, Verb
Supra idem. An exclamation of warning; an injunction to cease; to mar;
to spoil; to deface or derange. Examples: “Jigger! The bull’s coming.”
“You’ve jiggered the lock.”
JIM, Noun
General currency. A cheap, inferior or worthless thing. Contraction of
“JIM CROW.” See “CROW.”
JIM, Verb
General currency. A synonym for “JIGGER.” Example: “Lay off! You’ll jim
the whole works.”
JIMMY, Noun
Used mainly by yeggs and prowlers. A burglar’s tool. A short, powerful
chisel or lever used by thieves for prying doors and windows open.
JIMMY, Verb
Supra idem. To pry or wrench loose with any instrument.
JINKS, JINX, Noun
General usage. In difficult straits. See “IN DUTCH.”
JITNEY, Noun
General currency. A nickel; a dime; a small coin; a picayune. Used
variously to signify an extremity in finance. Example: “Break away; he
hasn’t got a jitney.”
JOE, Noun
General currency in polite criminal circles. Wise; sophisticated. See
“Hep,” of which “JOE” and “JAKE” are subdivisions or contractions or
substitutions.
JOHN, Noun
General currency amongst the demi-monde. A “captain”; a “sucker”; an
amorous fool with money and free love proclivities. Also a man in a
contemptuous sense. Examples: “She’s got a John keeping her.” “Ask this
John what time the train starts.”
JOHN HANCOCK, Noun
Current amongst confidence men and paper grafters generally. A
signature. Derived from the common observation that John Hancock,
of Revolutionary fame, wrote a massive, extremely legible hand. See
“FINGER PRINT.”
JOINT, Noun
General currency. A business establishment; a hangout. Sometimes used
as a synonym of “DUMP,” though it does not necessarily imply meanness
or disrepute. Example: “Let’s drop in this joint and buy a suit of
clothes.”
JOLT, Noun
General usage. A prison sentence; a penalization; a blow; a physical or
moral jar. Example: “He did a jolt once before in Joliet.”
JOHN O’BRIEN, Noun
Current generally. A freight train, used in contradistinction to a
“RATTLER,” a passenger train. Example: “You can see by his clothes
that he has been riding John O’s.” Amongst “yeggs” it signifies also a
moneyless safe.
JUG, Noun
General currency. A prison; a bank; a secret receptacle for money or
compact valuables. Example: “Tail this mark to the jug and case what he
draws,” i. e., “observe what money he draws.”
JUNGLE, Noun
Current amongst yeggs. A loafing place or hang out beyond a city’s
limits, whether in the woods or not. An isolated or little frequented
spot.
JUNK, Noun
General currency. Inferior goods; any property of relative
worthlessness. Example: “Everything in his keister is junk.”
KALE, Noun
General currency. Bank notes; money of any kind. Evolved from the term
“GREEN GOODS,” the latter metaphor for money being derived from the
greenish aspect of currency. Example: “He’s got a bundle of kale that
would choke a cow.”
KEISTER, Noun
General currency. A satchel; a handbag; a small grip. Example: “What’s
his grift? He prowls the depots for keisters.”
KICK, Noun
Some general currency, but employed most effectively by pickpockets.
In common usage it signifies a pocket, any pocket; amongst “guns” it
is used exclusively to signify a front pants pocket. Also a protest, a
“squawk.”
KINK, Noun
General circulation. A crook; a larcenous criminal. See “HOOK”;
“HUSTLER.” Example: “Are there any kinks in the joint?” Also used by
yeggs to designate a non-criminal tramp, or one who is not initiated
into the particular craft of the speaker. In this latter sense the
term is derived from the epithet “gay-cat,” meaning a “working plug.”
Example: “Cut him out; he’s got forty-seven kinks in his tail.”
KIP, Noun
General usage. A bed; a place to sleep. See “PAD”; “DOSS”; “FLOP.” Used
also as a verb, to sleep, to go to bed, etc.
KISSER, Noun
General circulation. The countenance. See “MOOSH”; “MUG[9].” Example:
“You’ll recognize him by his hatchet kisser.”
[9] There is no entry for “MUG” in the text.
KITTY HOP, Noun
Current chiefly amongst gamblers. A heads-I-win-tails-you-lose
situation or proposition; a “double-cross”; a “frame-up,” in which
“both ends may be played against the middle.” Also used to indicate a
practical joke. Example: “We got the skirt to frame a kitty hop for him
and he fell for it.”
LACE, Verb
General currency. To slam; to punch; to beat unmercifully. Example:
“The three dicks laced him like a football and then squared it by
throwing an order of ham and eggs under his belt.”
LAG, Noun
Current amongst statutory criminals. A prison sentence of one year;
sometimes used to signify an indefinite term of years in prison. The
“STRETCH” better expresses the latter sentence of penal servitude.
Example: “He’s doing a lag in the little can.” Also used as a verb as
the equivalent of “RAILROADING” a criminal to prison.
LAM, Noun
General currency. A hasty get-away; a running escape. Example: “He
heeled to the door and made a lam.”
LAM, Verb
General usage. To run; to flee. Most frequently employed in the
imperative mood.
LAMISTER, Noun
Supra idem. A corruption of “LAM.” Also a fugitive from justice.
Example: “He’s a lamister out of Chicago.”
LAMOS, Adjective
General currency. Gold-plated; flimsy; unsubstantial. Derived from
the name of a firm of Chicago jewelers who supplied the cheap jewelry
trade with “PHONIES,” or fake jewelry. Example: “You can’t hock it for
two-bits; it’s lamos.” Also used to signify inferior personal qualities.
LAYING OUT, Verb, Present Part.
Current amongst prowlers and sneak thieves. To watch from ambush; to
spy upon a person or establishment. Example: “To get this dump right
we’ll have to lay out on it every night for a week and make the doings.”
LAYING (NOTES), Verb, Present Part.
Current amongst flim-flammers. To make fraudulent change; to cheat by
the ruse of substitution. The latter craft is denominated “LAYING THE
ENVELOPE.”
LEATHER, Noun
Some general currency, but used chiefly by pickpockets. A pocketbook; a
wallet; a billbook. See “POKE.” Example: “He has an inside leather.”
LEARY, Adjective
General usage. Afraid; anxious; anticipatory.
LEMON, Noun
Current chiefly amongst bunco men. A confidence game in which skill at
pool is the bait, though its successful negotiation is based upon the
dishonesty or avarice of the victim. See “WIRE”; “SPUD.” A lemon joint
is a crooked pool and billiard room. Lately evolved to comprehend the
general meaning of a disappointment, a commercial illusion. In this
regard “lemon” is used In the deprecating sense conveyed by the term
“gold mine.” Example: “Lemons are selling in the open market for thirty
cents a dozen, but this one cost me a hundred iron men.”
LIVE ONE, Noun
General currency. An informed individual; a prospectively profitable
victim; an ambitious or keenly alert person. Example: “If we put this
live one through the sprouts we throw our feet under the mahogany at
the big top all the rest of the winter.”
LOB, Noun
General currency amongst better informed crooks. An awkward craftsman;
a delinquent; an opprobrious character amongst thieves. Contracted
from “LOBSTER,” which in turn is a metaphor derived by suggestion from
“CRAB,” the latter symbolizing backward action or the propensity for
reluctant participation. “LOBBY GOW” is another form of the same term,
used principally by confidence and “flat-joint” grafters to signify a
minor confederate, or “booster.”
LOADING, Verb, Present Part.
Current amongst pickpockets. The act of following, escorting or
forcibly jamming passengers aboard a street or passenger car or up any
flight of steps, as the entrance to an elevated railroad station; the
purpose of “LOADING” is to take advantage of unsuspecting eagerness
on the part of passengers so that violent extraction of valuables from
pockets shall scarcely be heeded. Example: “We were loading ’em on for
two hours steady in the Sunday excursion pushes.”
LOCO, Adverb
Current chiefly in western circles, though not used exclusively by
criminals. Slightly erratic in mental processes. The Spanish value of
the term is “crazy,” but by American criminal adoption it has been
modified to comprehend just less than that. See “NUTS.”
LOSER, Noun
Current amongst prison habitues. An ex-convict. See “Con.” Examples:
“Three time losers cop life in some states.”
LUMP, Noun
Current chiefly amongst yeggs, hobos and the indigent. A donation of
victuals intended for consumption outside the house. But alas! lumps
are sometimes impaled on the fence pickets by fastidious beggars who
become offended at the failure of well meaning but non-intuitive
philanthropists to invite them in to eat at the table. This latter
operation is gratefully termed a “sit-down.”
MAC, Noun
General currency. A pimp; a lover of a lewd woman. A man who lives upon
the earnings of a prostitute. Derived from the French term “Macquereau.”
MAIN STEM, Noun
General currency. The main thoroughfare of a community. See “DRAG.”
MAKE, Verb
General currency. To recognize; to discern; to solve; to acquire in
an intellectual sense. See “RAP.” Example: “You had better ring up
(disguise) so he won’t make you.”
MARK, Noun
General circulation. A man; a prospective victim.
MATCH, Noun
Current amongst confidence men. A bunco game similar in nature to
the “LEMON,” but in which coins are matched; the fraud consisting in
treachery on the part of the confidence man who steers the victim with
the professed intention of betraying his de facto confederate.
MEAL TICKET, Noun
General currency. A female of the open market who supports a lover; any
gratuitous source of subsistence. Example: “The stiff won’t put up his
back so long as he’s got a meal ticket.”
MEIG, Noun
General currency amongst cosmopolitans. A nickel; a five-cent piece.
See “JITNEY.” Sometimes used to indicate the minimum basis of exchange
medium, the cent, as a hundred meigs, fifty meigs, etc. Example:
“What’s the tax for the scoffin’s? Twenty-five meigs.”
MELT, Noun
Current amongst loothunters, but pennyweighters and other jewelry
thieves particularly. Precious metals that may be melted in a crucible
to make identity difficult or impossible. See “BREAK UP.” Example: “The
swag netted a melt of a thousand dollars.”
M’GIMP, MEGIMP, Noun
Current in western circles. A pimp; a lover in the vicious meaning. See
“MAC.”
MICHAEL, Noun
Current amongst bottle drinkers. A flask of liquor. Example: “Have you
got a michael on your hip?”
MICHIGAN, Noun
General currency. A spectacular ruse; a deceptive appearance, as a fake
bank roll; a hoax staged with sinister intent. Example: “They started a
michigan scrap and trimmed the sucker in the mix-up.”
MICKY, Noun
Current amongst bottle drinkers. A corruption of “MICHAEL.”
MILL, Verb
General currency, but of western origin. To amble around aimlessly; to
exercise by walking. Example: “We milled around town all day without
turning a trick.”
MITT, Noun
Current chiefly amongst gamblers when the sense is a hand of cards.
The “MITT” is a confidence game of the same nature as the “LEMON” or
the “MATCH,” involving a double cross. Also a card hand in any square
game. In general currency it means both the human hand and any scheme,
system or personal character. See “DUKE.” Amongst prison habitues the
“MITTS” signify handcuffs. Example: “If he spiels long enough he’ll
tip his mitt.” “They framed a strong mitt for him and beat him for
half a century.” A “MITT JOINT” is a gambling house where victims are
“steered” for fleecing by means of deceptively “sure thing” hands.
MOB, Noun
General currency. Two or more confederates joined together for
nefarious practices. Used most frequently to designate a gang of
pickpockets, a “GUN MOB.”
MOCHA, Noun
Current amongst shoplifters. Cloth; a suit pattern. Example: “I know a
derrick who’ll peddle a mocha for a finif.”
MOLL, Noun
General currency. A woman, regardless of character. See “JANE.”
MONACRE, MONACKER, Noun
Current amongst yeggs and registering itinerants. A nickname; a
professional cognomen. A corruption of the term “monogram,” devised to
meet the contingencies arising out of the oft requested information:
“What’s your handle?” Example: “You’ll have to look in the cook book to
find a fancy monacker, for all the ready ones are appropriated, judging
by the register on this tank.”
MONKEY, Noun
General currency. A man, used in the mildly indifferent sense of a
stranger. See “GEEZER,” “GAZABO,” etc. Sometimes used to signify a
“BOOB.”
MOOCH, Noun
Current amongst beggars. A mendicant; an alms solicitor.
MOOCH, Verb
General currency. To stroll; to move about. See “MILL.” Example: “Mooch
around the block and come back in ten minutes.” Also, to beg.
MOOSH, MOUSH, Noun
General circulation. The human face; the physiog. See “KISSER.” Also
the mouth. Probably from French bouche (mouth). Probably derived from
the French “mouchoir,” a handkerchief, suggested by its utilization as
a face mop. Example: “He’s got a harp moosh,” i. e., Irish.
M, or MORPH, Noun
Used by morphine fiends. Sulphate of morphia.
MOPE, Verb
General currency. To walk away; to remove one’s presence to another
locality or spot. See “BLOW,” “MOOCH,” “DUCK.”
MOUSER, Noun
Current in cosmopolitan circles. A “fairy;” a character obsessed by
lewd passions.
MOUTHPIECE, Noun
General currency. A lawyer; an advocate; a spokesman; a representative.
Example: “The fall dough is to be used exclusively for a mouthpiece and
nothing else.”
MUD FENCE, Noun
Current amongst yeggs, safecrackers. A soap lip, a trench of soap or
other plastic substance constructed to hold nitroglycerin in funnel
formation until it seeps through a joint in a safe.
MUSH, Noun
General usage. An umbrella. Example: “When you can’t do anything else
you can heel the hotels and depots for mushes and turkeys.”
NAILED, Verb, Past Part.
General currency. Apprehended. See “GRABBED,” “GLOMMED.”
NECKING, Noun
General circulation. A scrutiny; an impertinent staring. See “GANDER,”
“RUBBER[10].” Example: “The guinea on the end is giving you a necking
through the glass.” Also used as a verb, to “neck,” to peer, to watch.
[10] There is no entry for “RUBBER” in the text.
NEXT, Adverb
General usage. Conventionally wise. A synonym for “JAKE,” “JOE,” “HEP.”
Example: “You can’t spring anything he isn’t next to.”
NICK, Verb
Current mainly amongst pickpockets. To surreptitiously extract
something from the person; to “touch” in the criminal sense; to purloin
by stealth in personal presence of a victim. Example: “This lob
couldn’t nick a handful of air out of a flour barrel without scratching
his mitt.”
NINES, Noun
Current amongst roues and cosmopolitans. The limit possible; the
maximum extent. Example: “He’s soused to the nines;” “That dony is made
up to the nines,” i. e., artificially beautified.
NOODLE, Noun
General currency. The human head; brains; savoir faire; mentality.
Example: “He’s got a noodle like a Santa Claus,” i. e., intuition,
perspicacity.
NUT, Noun
Commonly current in all circles when the meaning is “LOCO.” Used by
grafters whose operations involve an investment to signify an expense
incurred in connection with a venture. Example: “The grift was punk; we
were framed five strong and never got the nut off.” “We went on the nut
for two fifty.”
NUTS, Noun
Current amongst “flat joint” grafters, though comprehended in general.
The three shells. See “HICKS.” Example: “If we can’t beat the crap game
we will play the nuts for the winners.” As an adjective and adverb it
signifies daft, mentally deranged.
OFFICE, Noun
General currency. A signal; a sign; a warning conveyed by facial
expression, by physical motion, by sound or other nonchalant prompting.
Example: “When I give you the office, blow.” Used also as a verb in the
same sense.
ON, Adverb
General currency. Wise. A synonym for “NEXT,” “JAKE.” Also used to
indicate an acceptance, as of a proposition. Example: “You’re on for
five hundred.”
OPEN AIR, Noun
Current amongst “flat joint” men and circus grafters generally. Used
both as adjective and noun. County fair, street carnival, popular sport
gathering and other out-of-door grafting.
OVER ISSUE, Noun
Current amongst confidence men of the “green goods” type. A bunco
scheme involving the use of crisp, new legitimate bank notes which
are purported to have been clandestinely issued by employees of the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing. One or two of the notes are given the
victim who is then steered to a confederate who poses as a detective.
The latter professes to recognize the principal in the bunco as an
ex-convict and counterfeiter. The upshot of the scheme is the “shaking
down” of the victim for all he possesses and is successfully carried
out through the victim’s fear induced by consciousness of criminal
complicity.
PAD, Noun
General circulation. A bed; a place to sleep. See “KIP;” “DOSS.”
PADDED, Verb, Past Part.
Current amongst shoplifters. To have swag concealed about the person
in a neat, compact order so as to enable the thief to pass inspection.
Example: “He moped out of the joint padded to the nines.”
PAN, Verb
General currency. To scandalize; to defame. Example: “They panned
everybody to a whisper.” “ON THE PAN” signifies a subject on the carpet
for discussion.
PAPER HANGER, Noun
Current principally amongst forgers and utterers of false paper.
Example: “There’s a bunch of paper hangers plastering the town from A
to Izzard.”
PETE, PETER, Noun
Current amongst yeggs. A safe; a strong box; a “GOPHER.” Example:
“The pete in the pig is a single H. H. with a drop,” i. e., “The safe
in the hardware store is a single door, Herring-Hall with a drop
handle.” Amongst gamblers and badgers a “peter” is a sleeping potion, a
“knockout,” such as hydrate of chloral.
PIG, Noun
Current amongst yeggs and prowlers. A hardware store; the merchandise
sold by hardware stores, preferably the more valuable assortments.
Deduced: “Hardware”: steel tools, steel, iron, pig iron. Example:
“He’s gone out to drop a swag of pig.”
PINCH, Noun
Current amongst “flat joint” grafters. A wheel of fortune or a roulette
wheel that can be stopped at any point desired by operating a secret
trigger or spring. As a noun its use is also general in the sense of an
arrest; the same with the verb, to pinch.
PIPE, Noun
General currency. A certainty; a cinch. Example: “It’s a pipe that he
can’t get away with it.” Derived from the term “lead pipe,” used by
highwaymen, because its effectual employment involves a moral certainty
that the robber will relieve the victim of his valuables.
PIPE, Verb
General currency. To look; to concentrate the attention; to observe.
See “GUN.” Example: “Pipe the moll with the rocks.”
PITCH, Noun
General currency. An effort; an essay; an attempt. See “PLUNGE.”
A “HIGH PITCH” is the term used by street fakirs to describe the
operation of beguiling the public from a soap box, a platform, a
carriage or automobile; selling merchandise from an eminence like an
auctioneer.
PIVOT, Verb
Current amongst yeggs and street beggars. To solicit alms on the
thoroughfares. Used also by “HUSTLERS” to indicate the operations of a
woman of the town who solicits on the streets.
PLUNGE, Noun
Super idem. To sally out on the streets with a specific aim, as in
begging, soliciting or in other reprehensible conduct. Example: “The
whole tribe made a five buck plunge to spring Jimmy from the canister.”
Amongst non-criminal classes of the demi-monde the term is used to
indicate a strenuous endeavor.
POKE, Noun
General currency. A pocketbook. (Poke a sack or bag. “A pig in a
poke.”) See “LEATHER.”
P. P., Noun
Current amongst yeggs and money-begging tramps. A plaster of paris cast
used on arm or limb to simulate fracture. See “BUG;” “JIGGER.”
PRATT, Noun
General usage. The human rear; the buttocks; a hip pocket.
PROP, Noun
General circulation amongst pickpockets and looters. A diamond stud
originally, now comprehending diamonds in any sense. See “FISH EYE.”
Example: “Any heel gun can get a breech poke, but it takes an A1 claw
to grab a prop.”
PROWL, Noun
General currency. An expeditionary investigation; a survey in transit;
a search of the person or of a place in the sense of “FRISK;” a
burglary; a sneak; a saunter. Also used as a verb in the same senses.
PUFF, Noun
Current amongst yeggs. Powder used to blow a safe; the explosion of
“SOUP” in a safe. Example: “The dump was kipped, but we muffled the
puff.”
PUNCHING GUN, Verb, Present Part.
General currency. The use of criminal slang; ostentatious display of
sophistication. Example: “He can punch gun till the cows come home, but
he can’t get a can of water out of a water tank.”
PUNK, Noun
General currency. Bread. As an adjective the term is synonymous with
“CROW,” “LAMOS.” Example: “The whole layout is punk.” Also a sodomite
youth--a yegg term.
PUSH, Noun
General currency. Crowd; gang; clique; mob.
PUSH and SLIDE, Noun
Current amongst short changers and confidence men who employ the ruse
of substitution. A short changing operation whereby money, currency,
counted in the hand of the crook is afterward held out by palming,
and depends for immunity from detection by a forcible pushing of the
residue of the sum counted into the hand of the victim, accompanied by
a suggestion or urge to pocket the money without recounting.
PUSSY FOOT, Noun
General currency. A detective. See “RICHARD;” “DICK.”
PUT-EM-UP, Noun
Current amongst heavyweights mainly. A highway robber; a desperate
criminal who is prepared to hold up any interloper to prevent
interference.
RAG, Noun
General currency. A woman. See “SKIRT;” “JANE;” “MOLL.”
RAP, Noun and Verb
General usage. An identification; a charge of guilt.
RAT, Noun
General currency. Passenger train: street car. A contraction of
“RATTLER.” Also an ignominious term, used in the sense of “CRAB.”
RAT CRUSHER, Noun
Current amongst heavyweights, yeggs and “dise” men. A box-car burglar.
The terms “rattler” and “John O’Brien” are used interchangeably by some
criminals, but their original significations are those given.
RATTLER, Noun
General currency. A passenger train; a passenger or street car.
Example: “The two of us stalled the rattler can on one ducat.” Also a
“RAT WORKER.”
READER, Noun
Current amongst “flat joint” men and peddlers. A formal license; a
certificate; a written permit. Example: “You can’t open the ballyhoo in
this burg without a reader.”
READERS, Noun
Current amongst crooked gamblers. A pack of marked cards, therefore
readable from the obverse side. Example: “How are they working, with
the mitt? No, with the readers.”
REDUCTION, Noun
Current amongst dope fiends. The reduction cure for a “HABIT.” Example:
“The only sensible way of getting off is on the reduction.”
REEF, Verb
Current amongst pickpockets. To lift a pocket lining or an obstacle
in the form of wearing apparel by methodical manner to expedite the
operations of the “WIRE” or “TOOL” in a gun mob. Generally used in the
imperative mood. Example: “Reef the right kick for a tweezer.” By this
function a pocket may be slowly turned inside out without detection;
it is done in cases where the pocket is too deep, too tight or where
extraordinary caution is expedient in pocket picking.
RICHARD, Noun
General currency. A detective. Derived from the process of nicknaming,
but in reverse of the usual custom. Thus from the term “DETECTIVE,”
“DICK” was suggested and hence “RICHARD” was derived. Or, following the
corruption of the English “Robert” to “Bob” and “Bobby,” the American
parallel was suggested.
RIGHT, Adjective
General currency. Sympathetic in a criminal sense; fixed; squared;
noncondemnatory. Also a synonym for “SQUARE-SHOOTER.” Example: “He’s
as right as a golden guinea. Slip him a piece of soft.” Also used as a
verb, to fix; to bribe.
RINGER, Noun
General currency. A similarity; a double; a disguise; a pair of
spectacles. Used in the latter sense because of the wonderful change
produced in one’s aspect by the addition of a pair of nose glasses or
spectacles to the personal adornment. Used also as a verb. Example:
“They’ll hardly make him because he’s rung up.”
RISER, Noun
General circulation. An “eye opener;” a scare; a fright; any mental or
physical agent that moves to action. Example: “He got an awful riser
with that dick at his pratt.”
ROAR, Noun
General currency. A protest. See “SQUAWK;” “BELCH.” Example: “If this
gink blows the touch he’ll make an awful roar.”
ROCKS, Noun
General usage. Diamonds. In popular slang it means money.
ROD, Noun
General currency. A revolver. See “SMOKE WAGON;” “ROSCOE.” Also used as
verb, to hold up at the point of a pistol. Example: “Rod this guy right
off the jump.” (Here as verb.)
RODS, Noun
In general circulation amongst “hop scotchers.” The iron truck braces
under a passenger coach, running at right angles to the length of the
car. A “ROD DUCAT” is a small board used as a seat by truck riders.
ROLL, Verb
General usage. To search the pockets of a sleeping person or of an
intoxicated one. Example: “He rolled a stiff for a bundle of scratch.”
Used as a noun “ROLL” signifies a wad of money, as a “BANK ROLL.”
ROSCOE, Noun
Current amongst arms-carrying criminals. A revolver. See “CANNON;”
“GAT.” Example: “Stash your roscoe before you come back to the kip.”
ROUND, Noun
General currency. A turning of the head to take a backward glance;
surveying the rear trail to ascertain whether or not one is being
followed, or to determine the identity of a person or object passed.
Example: “Stall something to the ground and take a round at this
coatmaker;” (trailer or tailer, corrupted to tailor and thence
coatmaker).
ROUST, Verb
Current amongst pickpockets. To jam against a victim in a violent
manner; to squeeze a victim between two pickpocket assistants in a
way to distract his attention from the principal in the encounter who
consectaneously[11] extracts the victim’s valuables from a given pocket.
In the present tense the term is used in the imperative mood, being a
command and an instruction of itself. Example: “Roust!!” “Jostle the
victim rudely, but in a seemingly unconscious manner.”
[11] The author probably intended “simultaneously.”
ROUTE, Verb
Current amongst pickpockets principally. To look up and make memoranda
of dates of large popular gatherings, such as conventions, etc. This is
known as “Routing the grift.” To route is usually the function of the
best mind in a “gun mob.”
RUM, Noun
General currency. An ignoramus; an inefficient. Derived from the
experience that “booze” incapacitates the mind of a crook, who to be
successful requires a quick wit and a vigilant grasp of situations. A
synonym for “RUM DUM,” that is, dumb, of slow wit, from the use of rum.
RUMBLE, Noun
General currency. A botch that precipitates discovery; a faux pas; an
awkward situation brought about by fumbling. See “BLOOMER;” “TUMBLE;”
“FALL.” Example: “If you walk on the main stem with him you’ll get a
rumble.” In this sense the term implies an identification. Also used as
a verb, to arouse suspicion; to be discovered.
SANTA CLAUS, Noun
General currency. An ingenious mind; an original thinker.
SAPS, Noun
General currency. Crutches; clubs or sticks as weapons of offense.
Derived from “sapling.” The latter meaning may also be employed in the
form of the verb, to sap, to beat. Any bludgeon is a sap.
SCAT, Noun
General circulation. Whiskey. Derived by suggestion from “skey” (skee),
the termination of “whiskey.”
SCOFF, Verb
General usage. To eat. Example: “When do we scoff in this dump?” Also
used as a noun; a “scoff” is a meal, a feed.
SCORE, Verb
Current amongst pickpockets and criminals who are necessitated to make
frequent repetitions of procedure to acquire means. To successfully
negotiate; to “make a touch;” to “put one over.” Example: “We scored
seven times in the same joint by ringing up,” i. e., disguising. Also
used as a noun in the same sense.
SCRATCH, Noun
General currency amongst literate criminals. Paper currency; a letter;
a signature; a writing. Examples: “He’s got a bundle of scratch,” (Bank
roll); “The only way you can get a knock-down (introduction) is with
a scratch.” “The difficult thing is to get his scratch.” See “JOHN
HANCOCK;” “STIFF.”
SCREW, Noun
General currency amongst prison habitues and prowlers. A key; a turnkey
or jailor; a prison guard. Example: “That bunch of screws you’re
carrying is a knock.” “You can get a letter in through the screw; he’s
a P. O.”
SCENERIES, Noun
General currency. A pair of spectacles or nose glasses. See “GLIMS;”
“RINGER.” Example: “He’s peddling sceneries and hoops.”
SEND IN, Noun
General circulation. An indorsement; a recommendation. Example: “With
the proper send in I can twist this boob. Rib it up.” Also used as a
verb, to laud, to praise, with an ulterior motive.
SETTLED, Verb, Past Part.
General currency amongst outlaw criminals. Convicted of misdemeanor
or statutory offense. Example: “He’s settled for a two spot.” See
“LAGGED[12];” “LOSER.”
[12] There is no entry for “LAGGED” in the text.
SHAGGED, Verb, Past Part.
General currency. Identified; recognized; discovered; exposed. See
“RAPPED.” Example: “He was shagged on the first go.”
SHAKE DOWN, Noun
General currency. A personal search; a deprivation of one’s personal
belongings. Used also as a verb. Example: “If this dick nails you
you’ll have to stand a shake down.”
SHILLIVER, SHILLIBER, Noun
Current amongst criminals who employ “Stalls,” “boosters,” or aides. A
supernumerary; a secondary; an epithet applied to apprentice crooks. To
“SHILL” is to act in the capacity of a hired criminal.
SHONIKER, Noun
Current amongst cosmopolitan thieves, especially Jews. A neophyte or
inexperienced hand at the game. A synonym for “SHILLIBER.”
SHOOT, Verb
Current amongst hypodermic habitues. To inject morphine or other drug
with a syringe. Example; “How many times do you shoot a day?”
SHOW, Verb.
General currency. To keep an appointment; to present oneself at a
meeting place. Example: “This party can never be depended upon to show.
He’ll stick you nine times in ten.”
SHORT, Noun
Current chiefly amongst pickpockets, though used by all polished
criminals to some extent. A street car. Derived from the limited extent
of a street car ride compared with the distances negotiable by railroad
transportation. Example: “After catching the breaks we’ll make the
shorts for a half hour.”
SKIRT, Noun
General currency. A woman. See “JANE;” “MUFF[13];” “MOLL.”
[13] There is no entry for “MUFF” in the text.
SKIN, Noun
General circulation. A shirt. Example: “Let’s go down to the jungles
and boil our skins.”
SLAM, Noun
General currency. An insult; a rebuke; an insinuation. Also used in
the same sense as a verb as well as with the meaning of violence, to
deliver a vigorous blow.
SLANG, Noun
General currency. A watch chain. A watch fob, as well as an earring, is
called a “DANGLER.”
SLOUGH, Verb
General currency. To dispose of; to abandon; to throw away; to
eliminate; to conceal without delay or forethought. Example: “There
isn’t a mark of identification on his clothes; he’s sloughed
everything.” In this sense the term is pronounced “sluffed.” In the
sense of hiding or getting rid of an object instantly the same word is
pronounced “slou,” with the sound of “o” as in cow. To “SLOUGH” also
means to close, to shut, as a door.
SLOUGHER, Noun
Current amongst plunderbunders. A fence; a pawnbroker; a middle man in
the disposition of contraband.
SLUM, Noun
General currency. Jewelry of any description, but lately reduced in
scope of meaning to include only the less valuable kinds of jewelry;
a synonym for “CROW;” “PUNK.” Example: “He’s got a bale of slum for
sloughings.”
SMOKE WAGON, Noun
General currency. A firearm; a revolver. See “ROD;” “CANNON.”
SNEEZE, Verb
General usage. To be apprehended; detained. See “GLOMMED;” “CRABBED.”
Example: “He wouldn’t have been sneezed if he had kept away from that
fluzie.”
SNOW, Noun
Current chiefly amongst cocaine fiends. Derived from the extremely
flocculent nature of cocaine when pulverized, in which state cocaine
is used as a snuff. A “SNOW BIRD” is the customary designation of the
cocaine habitue.
SOFT, Noun
Current amongst currency thieves and grafters who handle considerable
sums of money. Paper money. See “SCRATCH.” Example: “I fanned a gob of
soft in the right jerve.” As an adjective “soft” means easy, facile,
felicitous, comfortable.
SOUP, Noun
Current amongst yeggs. Nitroglycerine. Example: “If you drop that
bottle of soup you’ll grease the scenery,” i. e., be blown up.
SOUTH, Adverb
General circulation. Stored away; concealed, as valuables. See “UNDER
COVER.” As a verb the term is employed with the same meaning. Example:
“Keep tabs and see that he don’t go south with the dough.”
SPLIT, Noun
General currency. A division, as of spoils. See “END;” “BIT.” Used as a
verb it indicates to divide, as money; or to separate, as in the sense
of “SPLIT OUT,” or “SPLIT AWAY.” Example: “The make was split three
ways and then we split out.”
SPUD, Noun
Current amongst confidence men chiefly. The “green goods” bunco; a
substitution ruse, devised originally on the basis of counterfeit
currency, hence the name “SPUD,” derived by attribution, as in the case
of “KALE.” Any confidence game in which currency plays a prominent part
as a lure is aptly designated a variation of the “SPUD.” Also commonly
used as a synonym for the Irish potato.
SQUAB, Noun
Current amongst libertines mainly. A young female; an unsophisticated
girl.
SQUARE PLUG, Noun
General currency. A timorous person who is in moral sympathy with the
criminal element, but lacking the courage or inclination to actually
participate; a harmless individual in the view of crooks. Example:
“Don’t be leery of him; he’s a square plug.”
SQUARE-SHOOTER, Noun
General currency. A dependable person; a reliable, compact-keeping
person; though not necessarily a moral, virtuous, impeccable one; for
it is politic for even a crook to be a “square-shooter” provided it be
also expedient.
SQUAWK, Noun
General currency. A protest; a vociferous demonstration, as an
indignant repudiation of an injustice. Also used as a verb in the same
sense. Example: “If you don’t put up a squawk they’ll trim you.”
SQUEEZE, Noun
General circulation. The principal or manager of an institution, an
establishment or of any undertaking. A contraction of the popular “MAIN
SQUEEZE,” meaning the same as here given.
STAB, Noun
General currency. An essay to accomplish a project; an effort. See
“PLUNGE.” Also used as a verb. Example: “I don’t know how it will come
out, but I’m going to make a stab at it.” Also used by dope fiends for
“JAB.”
STALL, Noun
General currency. A pretense; an equivocation; a confederate who
distracts the attention of a victim or misleads him to regrettable
action. See “BOOSTER.” Used as a verb in the same sense, to
prevaricate, to misrepresent with sinister intent. The colloquial
vernacular, “He’s got more stalls than a livery stable,” signifies that
the person under discussion is a shifty agent, a colossal liar.
STASH, Verb
General currency. To hide; to conceal; to cease talking; to “plant.”
Also used as a noun in the sense of something cached. Example: “Stash
the gun crackin; there’s a knocker in the push.”
STIFF, Noun
Current amongst literate criminals chiefly. A piece of paper; a letter;
a ticket; a license; a permit. See “READER.” Derived from the unpliable
attribute of paper in general. Example: “I haven’t had a stiff from
home for two months.” Also used to designate a mean, contemptible
person; sometimes it is employed as a synonym for man. See “GUY;”
“MARK.”
STIR, Noun
General currency amongst prison habitues. Penitentiary; a synonym
for “BIG HOUSE,” the latter being employed in contradistinction to
county jails, workhouses and police stations when prison is discussed.
Example: “He’s back in stir again.”
STEM, Noun
Current amongst yeggs. A steel drill. Amongst opium smokers the term
signifies an opium pipe. See “GONGER.” It also is a synonym for “DRAG.”
STRETCH, Noun
Current amongst prison habitues. A prison sentence. See “LAG;” “BIT.”
In general circles the term signifies a look, a glance, used as a verb
as well as a noun. See “GANDER;” “NECKING;” “ROUND.”
STIX, Noun
General currency. A pair of crutches. See “SAPS.”
STRIDES, Noun
General usage. A pair of trousers. Example: “This dump is an easy boost
for the strides.”
STRING, Noun
Current amongst yeggs. A fuse. Example: “He’s got five yards of string
around the midriff,” i. e., wrapped around the waist under the shirt.
SUEY POW, Noun
Current amongst opium smokers. A sponge or rag used to cool and cleanse
the face of an opium bowl. Also used by the demi monde as an equivalent
of the term “GRANNY.”
SURE THING, Noun
Current amongst confidence men and “flat joint” grafters principally. A
something-for-nothing proposition. See “HUNDRED PER CENT.” Used as an
adjective it specifies an unmitigated robbery.
SWEETEN, Verb
General currency. To augment; to “press” in the gambler’s sense, as a
jackpot. Amongst the plunderbund the term signifies the procuring of an
additional loan on collateral. Also used as a synonym for “BRIBE.”
SWINGING BALL, Noun
Current amongst “flat joint” grafters. A ball suspended from a gibbet
by a chain or string and which is skillfully swung at a wooden cone
posited in the center of the ball’s swinging area, the purpose being
to avoid the cone on the forward movement, and to strike it upon the
rebound. Incidentally the aim is to relieve the inexpert of ready cash.
SWITCH, Verb
General currency. To substitute; to exchange; to vary. Example: “The
only way you can score with the weight in that joint is with the
switch, as he has everything cased.” Used as a noun to signify a
substitute.
TAIL, Verb
General circulation. To trail; to follow. Used as a noun in the same
sense. Example: “Be careful not to bring anything home on your tail,”
i. e., a shadower.
TENT, Noun
Current amongst prison habitues. A cell. Example: “He’s doing penance
in a tent.”
THERE, Adverb
General currency. Informed; wise; trained; artful. Example: “He’s there
forty ways from Revelation.”
THIMBLE, Noun
General currency. A watch. See “BLOCK;” “TURNIP.” Formerly the term in
the plural had the signification of “NUTS;” “HICKS;” “SHELLS;” as these
are in use today.
TIN EAR, Verb
General usage. To eavesdrop; to listen impertinently. Also used as a
noun. Example: “Chop the wheeze, we’ve got a tin-ear on our hip.”
TIP, Noun
Pickpockets. A ticket office. The place where obligations are paid to a
cashier.
TOG, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. An overcoat used for a shield. From Latin
“Toga,” a cloak.
TOMMY, Noun
General currency amongst the licentious. A prostitute. See “DONY.”
TOOL, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. A pickpocket proper; the member of a “gun
mob” who does the “dipping.” Also used as a verb in the same sense.
TOP, Verb
General currency. To execute by hanging. See “BUMP OFF.” Example:
“Carrying a rod is an invitation to get topped.”
TOUCH, Noun
Current mainly amongst pickpockets, though used in a milder sense in
general circles. See “SCORE.” Example: “Any fink that tears into that
tip without making a touch ought to be canned.” “He tried to put the B.
on me for the third touch this week.”
TRIBE, Noun
Used principally by yeggs and begging bums, though current, too,
amongst grafters who operate in cliques. A gang; a class. Example:
“You’ll find the tribe at the joint when you get there.”
TRIM, Verb
General currency. To fleece; to cheat; to rob in any manner. Example:
“If you make a flash you’re due to get trimmed.”
TUMBLE, Noun
General currency. A discovery; an exposure. See “RUMBLE.” Example:
“It’s a bad idea to work without fall dough, for it’s a ten-to-one jig
on the first tumble.” Used as a verb in the same sense, as well as to
signify acquiring understanding suddenly.
TURKEY, Noun
General usage. A suit case; a large traveling bag. Derived by
suggestion from the popular custom of stuffing a trunk full of personal
belongings into a suit case. In non-criminal circles, as well as in
criminal, the term has a vague meaning of facileness, something easily
or readily accomplished.
TURNIP, Noun
General currency. A pocket time piece; a watch. See “BLOCK.”
TWEEZER, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. A small pocketbook with knob clasps.
TWISTED, Verb, Past Part.
Current amongst confidence men. To be buncoed; to be deluded by a
confidential snare. Derived by suggestion from the confusion created in
the understanding of a victim in the usual confidence game. See “TRIM.”
Example: “Out of six plays we twisted five ripe ones.”
UNDER COVER, Adverb
General currency. Protected financially by a reserve held in secret;
selfish; miserly; illiberal with wealth. See “SOUTH.” Example: “Anybody
in this mob that’s under cover is running chances of being prowled.”
UNDERNEATH, Adverb
Current amongst shoplifters. A term used to describe the most common
method employed by female shoplifters of concealing stolen goods;
i. e., carried between the limbs. Example: “She can go underneath with a
bigger bunch of junk than any other moll I know.”
UNLOADING, Verb, Present Part.
Current amongst pickpockets. Picking pockets in a crowd as passengers
alight from street or railroad cars. Example: “We scored more pokes in
unloading them than we did in the breaks.”
WEAVE, Verb
Current amongst pickpockets. To sway a victim rudely from right to left
between two “stalls” so that the “claw” may operate without detection
of finger contact. Example: “Weave! I’ve got a tight breech,”
i. e., “jostle the victim, I have got my hand on a pocket book that is
wedged too firmly in the pocket to be pulled out without the aid of
distraction.”
WEIGHT, Noun
Used by store jewelry thieves. Pennyweighting; the “pwt.”
WELCH, Verb
Current in all circles. To betray a professional confidence; to peach;
to protest. See “ROAR.” Example: “Unless you’re nailed bang to rights
don’t welch, for the first principle of self-defense in law is to make
the other fellow find out what he wants to know through someone else.”
WHITE, Noun
Current amongst morphine habitues. Morphine. Example: “How many times a
day are you shooting the white?”
WEED, Verb
Current chiefly amongst pickpockets, though used to some extent by
those who are familiar with currency. To extract any fraction from
a roll of bills; to withdraw a partial sum from the principal; to
take the essential and leave the nonessential, as the money from a
pocketbook of miscellaneous valuables; to steal a sum which will hardly
be missed because of its proportion to the whole amount involved.
Examples: “Weed the poke and put it back.” “He weeded a sawbuck to me
under the table.”
WHITE LINE, WHITE LIME, Noun
Current amongst yeggs and hoboes. Alcohol. Example: “You’ll have to go
to the croker and get a stiff for the white line.”
WICKY, Noun
General circulation. Calaboose; place of detention in small towns and
villages. Contraction from “WICKY UP,” an old term for a small tent,
used by the Indians.
WIPE, Noun
General currency. A handkerchief.
WIRE, Noun
Current amongst pickpockets. The principal craftsman in a “gun mob.”
See “CLAW;” “JERVE;” “TOOL.”
WOLF, Verb
General currency. To vehemently protest. See “SQUAWK.”
WOP, Noun
Used principally in the east. An ignorant person; a foreigner; an
impossible character. See “BOOB.” Example: “You couldn’t find a jitney
with a search warrant in this bunch of wops.”
WORM, Noun
Current amongst shoplifters. Silk; a bolt of silk. Example: “Can you
swing under with a worm?”
YEGG, Noun
General currency. A desperate criminal of the least gregarious and
social type; a thieving tramp.
YEN HOCK, Noun
Current amongst opium smokers and other dope fiends. The slender steel
needle used for preparing opium pills over a lamp flame. Used also as
a metaphorical adjective to describe any slender object, as a lean
person. Example: “Ask the yen hock guinea to stake you to a glim.”
YEN SHE, Noun
Current amongst opium smokers. The residue of smoked opium, a black
cindery substance which clings to the interior of an opium bowl after
the opium has been melted by heat on the face of the bowl.
YEN YEN, Noun
Current amongst opium smokers. The recurrent relaxation from super
exhilaration occasioned by habitual indulgence in any opiate; these
three latter terms are pure Chinese, and were imported into criminal
circles with the advent of addiction to the opium-smoking habit in the
United States in the early seventies.
Suggestions for the Reduction of Preventable Crimes
It must be apparent, to all who have given more than a passing thought
to the relation between the criminal classes and the law and order
departments of our government, that the peace officers to whom the
public looks for protection can do but little more than apprehend
criminals after they have committed crimes. For, although the modern
system of identification, including the arts of photography, physical
measurements and record of finger prints together with a biographical
sketch of the suspect or convict, enables the police to locate a
known criminal and to frequently determine the probable identity
of an unknown who committed a crime from the more or less faithful
description furnished by the victim, it is understood only too well
that personal knowledge in possession of the peace officers concerning
the criminal propensities of a given individual is not sufficient
warrant before a trial court to justify the imprisonment of the
criminal; and, furthermore, the readiness of venal counsel to plead the
cause of guilty persons for a consideration is another insurmountable
obstacle to the safeguarding of society against the depredations of the
vicious classes who entertain such high respect for their freedom of
choice in moral matters that they decline to sell it for bread.
In short, the point sought to be brought out forcibly is that property
holders are depending entirely too much upon the police for protection
and too little upon themselves. If the prevention of crime be possible
then it rests as much with the prospective victims to prevent it
as it does with the guardians of peace, seeing the latter number
scarcely more than one to the thousand of our population and cannot be
everywhere at the same moment of time.
There is one practical method for successfully combatting stealth and
deceit, and its keynote is awareness. The local department of safety
has no bureau of publicity through whose functions the whole public may
be educated in the latest schemes for obtaining money and valuables by
false pretense, stealth and force, as well as apprised of the presence
in the community of this, that or the other well-known confidence
crook, sneak or robber. Just as the fire department is but partially
efficient in preventing fires and is necessarily devoted to their
suppression after they have come into existence, so the police must
often await the call for help from the thief’s victim before they may
take action. This is not always the case, of course, as in critical
times of crime epidemic, or upon the threatened approach of criminal
action, or in cases of exposed conspiracy, all the potential as well
as actual criminals in the community may be rounded up and detained by
operation of the vagrancy act. However, even in times of ordinary or
seeming quietude the total amount of losses suffered by the public and
which are never accounted for satisfactorily makes a staggering sum.
All losses are not discovered at once; of those that are all are not
reported to the police; whilst of the reported losses only a fraction
are ever recovered.
Many victims of the criminal classes prefer for one reason or another
not to let their losses come to light. One reason is lack of confidence
in the capability of the police to apprehend the criminal or recover
the loss, and this feeling is often held unjustly, arising out of the
failure of the victim to recognize the fact that police are no more
omniscient or omnipotent than other men, but labor under quite as rigid
limitations as do the victims of the criminals.
It devolves, therefore, upon the public at large to co-operate as
far as possible with the peace officers in preventing crime by the
adoption of self-protective measures, not measures of violence, but
of self-education in the methods of crime and of elimination of such
glaring opportunities as constitute a standing invitation to the
morally weak and irresponsible to help themselves to whatever is not
nailed down, sewed up in a bag, or too hot or of too high speed. The
average citizen disdains to inquire into the modes of the criminal
element; it is so sordid! Besides, he hires the policeman to do this
dirty work for him. It is the policeman’s business to rake in the muck
and to get himself slaughtered, if need be, in return for the ninety
dollars per month which the citizen pays him. Again, Mr. Citizen is
asleep at the switch regarding self-protection until he suffers a loss,
or he may have to suffer a great many losses before he awakens to the
realization that he as well as the policeman has a certain part to play
in the maintenance of public security.
The United States Supreme Court has held that it devolves upon a
plaintiff to secure himself against fraud through altered bank
checks by the personal use of the most approved devices which insure
protection. Suppose this same principle were applied to every merchant
in the protection of his goods against theft; to every automobile
owner; to every individual who carries money on his person; to every
householder who carelessly leaves vulnerable points to the watchfulness
of Providence; to the credulous people who fall easy victims to the
wiles of confidence men of a hundred schemes? Of course, there is
no danger that the principle will be applied except by the Supreme
Court of your personal conscience after you have looked the issue
squarely in the face. Then you may come to the reduction of preventable
crimes, whose solution rests upon a due recognition of carelessness
and ignorance as the chief factors. Non-preventable crimes occur by
reason of public impotence, both physical and mental. When your pocket
is picked it is because of your ignorance; or if you were previously
aware of the pickpockets’ methods then your loss is to be ascribed
to carelessness. You wouldn’t dare put your hand into a lion’s mouth
because you are afraid he will bite it. You know a pickpocket will
put his hand in your pocket and yet you are foolhardy enough to carry
valuables in accessible depositories.
The grand combination of popular attractions staged in all the cities
of the Pacific Coast for the year 1915 will act as a powerful magnet
to draw thither numerous criminals of almost every profession for
the purpose of thriving upon the ignorant, the careless and the
unprotected. They will operate upon the visitors and the natives
with equal avidity and daring. Their ranks will be made up mainly of
the cleverest members of their crafts; and as it will cost them a
considerable outlay to come it is a foregone conclusion that they will
come with a keener view to business than to pleasure. A few of them
will inevitably fall into the clutches of the law; more, however, will
probably be fortunate enough to get back to their native habitat laden
with the spoils of adventure, whilst a percentage of the whole number
may be expected, and reasonably, to fall by the wayside and thenceforth
for an indefinite season be compelled to cast in their lot with the
home talent and ply their trades in the principal coast cities. Every
cosmopolitan law and order bureau will delegate representatives to the
big celebrations to co-operate with local officials in identifying and
apprehending pedigreed malefactors; still, a liberal estimate of the
ratio of arrests to crimes will probably be one in every ten. Whilst
the virtuous hold lawful carnival during the coming year the vicious
will prosper.
There’s an old saying, “Three meals missed makes a possible thief
and six meals missed makes a possible murderer.” More to the point,
though, is the saying, “Eternal vigilance is the price of security.”
Very little stealing occurs in well-regulated banks, jewelry stores
and corporation counting houses, with the unavoidable exceptions
of crimes by superior force or internal disloyalty, for the simple
but signal reason that methods of awareness are in vogue there. This
was not always so; for they had to learn awareness in the school of
cold, hard facts, having been “bumped” and “twisted” and “turned” and
“flimmed” and “gyped” times innumerable before they learned the value
of precaution, self-defense.
There are two places from which a thief will not steal: where there
is nothing attainable and where the possessors of the attainable are
as wise and ready in self-defense as the thief himself. The eternal
struggle to attain goods is not more strenuous than the battle to hold
them. For, whilst possession is nine points of the law, dispossession
is such an easy achievement with one professional despoiler in
every thousand of our population that it behooves everyone in whose
education this fundamental element of self-protection has been too
sadly neglected to polish up his wit now and then by taking stock of
what the bold criminal may do in the way of seizing opportunities.
The self-reliant may not be frightened, yet it is not the purpose
to frighten even the timid; it is, nevertheless, the duty of every
citizen to pay heed to timely warning on the subject of preventable
crime not alone that he may protect himself but likewise contribute to
the protection of the weaker by removing as much of temptation from
the path of the criminally inclined as is found to be practical and
consistent with general commerce and the open enjoyment of honestly
acquired wealth.
In this regard consider that twenty years and less ago jewelers all
over this land, with very rare exceptions, were as easy prey to the
pennyweighters, or diamond and jewelry thieves, as the burial mounds or
“huacas” of the Incas with their fabulous treasure in gold ornaments
and bullion were to Pizarro and his free booters. Such was the lack
of self-protection in the system of display employed by the jewelers
in the recent past that anyone with the desire and temerity could
help himself out of trays in which gold ornamented with diamonds and
other precious stones was heaped indiscriminately in such wise as to
render detection of loss out of the question on the instant. Through
the organized efforts of the jewelers and opticians, by means of their
trade review, all this loose carelessness was wiped out, precision and
order in display and necessary changes in fixtures were adopted; a
system of surveillance and nation-wide reports on criminal developments
were carried out methodically, until today it is a very infrequent
occurrence for a capably managed jewelry store to suffer loss except by
robbery through violence or by disloyalty of employees. And jewelers
themselves are not the sole beneficiaries of this new order of self
protection; they have almost totally denied to the sneak thief the
opportunity, or temptation, of replenishing a depleted subsistence fund.
What they have done for jewelers the banks, aided by the inventive
genius of the Todds and the Burns Detective Agency, are doing for
savings fund and commercial bank depositors. The fraudulent issuance
and alteration of bank paper has assumed enormous proportions in recent
years, but by the operation of protective measures this resource of the
lawless will soon be entirely cut off.
The evolution of the small merchandising business into great department
stores has proved another fruitful source for both the early schooling
and continued support of petty and grand sneak thieves by the
irrepressible display of unprotected goods. The eagerness to sell lays
the managers open not only to personal loss, which must eventually be
charged off to advertising or some other item of overhead costs, but
also to widespread community loss by the activities of the successful
thieves outside the department store. In proportionate measure nearly
every storekeeper who openly displays small or compact and valuable
merchandise is contributing to the temptation of first-timers and
to the required opportunities of the professional thief and the
kleptomaniac. When confronted with this truth storekeepers shrug their
shoulders as though they are between the horns of a dilemma and say,
“We set our goods out for people to buy, not to steal,” unmindful of
the fact that of thieves in general some are born so, some become so
by surrounding circumstances, whilst every son of Adam is a potential
thief. You may deny this with as much vehemence as you care to expend
in protest against the aspersion of perfectly honest people, but if
you know the hidden workings of the human mind you must pause when you
reflect that hope, the well spring of ambition, is a variable in every
personality at different times, and when it, hope, reaches the maximum
intensity it becomes avarice. And with avarice goes the power of lying,
mendacity in word or action or both. Hence the above truth. For, a liar
will deceive, and larceny is but a degree of deceit. And once capable
of lying the particular manifestation of larceny is but a question of
congenital talent or combination of talents. But to get back to the
subject of preventable crimes.
Admitting that only a small proportion of crimes against property are
preventable (and in these suggestions for the reduction of preventable
crime only the crimes against property are being given consideration),
when we come to deal in aggregate losses, say annual ones, whatever
proportion may be prevented, by the timely dissemination of helpful
information upon this subject, should be recognized as a definite gain.
During this unusually active year the total losses to be inflicted upon
the fixed and floating population will undoubtedly run into five and
maybe six figures.
Of the dozen unorganized guilds of professional criminals enumerated in
the introduction to the Vocabulary the most to be feared and guarded
against are burglars, sneak thieves, merchandise thieves, forgers,
utterers of false paper, confidence men, pickpockets and thieves who
threaten violence. Of these the burglar and the robber who uses weapons
as an aide are the most difficult to deal with. Their suppression is
almost impossible, yet their partial defeat may be confidently hoped
for by the increased watchfulness of the peace officers, aided by the
greater prudence of householders and prospective victims in general.
What was said about banks, jewelry and specialty merchandise dealers
applies with equal pertinence to householders and others who offer
promising occasions for the application of the burglar’s skill.
Ordinary locks offer little protection against the burglar’s master
keys, jimmy and other tools of forcible or surreptitious entry; yet the
greater secretion of valuables may prove an effective remedy against
casual loss. Still, the best advice available for protection against
this sort of loss may be laughed to scorn by the clandestine act of a
desperate or determined criminal.
But of sneak stealing in stores much relief may be had by a sane regard
for safety in display. Valuables should not be placed within reach of
every ostensible patron, neither on top of counters and show-cases nor
in end show-cases nor in unprotected windows. If show-cases are so
narrow as to admit of access from the outside, in front, by reaching
across, they should be kept locked. The same with all end show-cases,
where free passage to their rears may be had. The merchant who violates
these modern canons of commercial prudence not only assumes personal
risk but he abets the thief and is a source of danger to others.
In department store prudence these same observations hold good, and
what is more important every clerk should be trained as thoroughly
in the protection of the goods submitted to his care as he is in the
execution of common exchange formalities. No goods should be shown
any customer without mental inventory of the number of separate
displays, so that accurate account may be constantly kept of them, and
when the fancy or demands of the customer are not satisfied with an
accumulation of goods which is assuming proportions too difficult to
inventory in a spontaneous summary they, or at least a part of them,
should be removed. Goods should not be left upon display while the
clerk withdraws his presence in search of other samples. The secret
of the successful store thief consists in his ability to obtain a
confusion of displays and then send the clerk for an article which
lies at some distance. The over-polite clerk or shop-keeper may at
first object that he cannot afford to be discourteous, disrespectful,
suspicious, gingerly or risk wounding the susceptibilities of a patron.
This objection would have greater weight in a drawing room or at some
function where politeness is on trial; in business it counts for far
less than safety.
Observe the presence of mind of your jeweler when he finds it necessary
to go in search of other displays. He knows it might prove fatal
once in a hundred times to leave a stranger in undisputed possession
of a tray of valuables, for even though he has them so arranged in
geometrical formation as to detect an abstraction he is aware that
a substitution might be made in the flash of an eye and thus wipe
out the profits accruing from the previous ninety-nine customers who
inspected his goods. No, he feels that business can dispense with the
urbane conventions, and he avoids possible loss from this source of
ever-present danger, as the veriest tyro of either sex and any age
possessed of inordinate desire could easily help him or herself whilst
the clerk’s back is turned.
When store sneaks operate in pairs or threes one, or in the latter case
perhaps two, of the number assumes the attitude of purchaser whilst
the seemingly indifferent companion or companions plot to secrete
goods. It is generally considered the duty of a floor or department
manager to keep a lookout for such seemingly unoccupied companions of
purchasers, yet it would be a profitable investment of time and pains
to instruct each and every clerk in the simple rules of protection.
An incentive, such as a bonus or promotion, should be held out as an
extra inducement to clerks to prevent thefts. Loss sustained through
internal peculations is, of course, a constant annoyance, not so
much on account of actualities as on account of possibilities. In
well-regulated establishments where no employee may enter the display
rooms with hat, package, umbrella, coat or wrap, and can therefore
carry none away, the chief losses by dishonest employees are those
of such small articles as may be hidden on the person. There still
remains the avenue of secret transfer of the store’s property to
friends of the clerks who may carry the same away in bags, suit cases
or in packages wrapped in paper imported into the store by the clerk’s
confederate. However, such cases do not come up frequently and are very
difficult of avoidance except by means of daily or weekly inventories
and an exhaustive knowledge of the employee’s previous character and
associates, which is an almost superhuman problem.
Clerks in all stores should be warned to scrutinize, not impertinently,
all strangers carrying packages of bulk, boxes, traveling bags,
umbrellas unfurled and loose or heavy wraps, whether worn or carried
on the arm, as these all afford means for secreting goods. Yet if
the few previous suggestions are observed no goods may be extracted
from a special display, though the fixed and open displays do afford
opportunities for the use of these sneak thief aides. Dangerous or
professional store thieves thrive not on trifling articles, but upon
the more valuable lines of merchandise, such as silks in bolts,
articles of silk manufacture, furs, leather goods, art works, jewelry,
wearing apparel, millinery and dress trimmings. Such goods should be
removed as far as possible from exits.
In smaller establishments these same rules for security should be
carefully carried out.
The stupendous losses suffered by business men of every class from
the operations of forgers and utterers of false paper could be
materially lessened if not wholly stamped out were obliging business
men to adopt the commonest measure in vogue in the telegraph offices,
express offices, postoffices and banks throughout the country--that
of absolutely refusing to cash paper of any variety for unidentified
strangers. The strict enforcement of this principle might sacrifice
trade for a time but it would save loss and eventually when all
reputable business houses by mutual agreement honor the observance the
obtaining of money by false pretenses with paper as collateral would
be impossible. Whoever writes a check or draft or signs a note or
other negotiable instrument unrecorded without protecting the same by
the most modern methods is foolishly laying himself liable as well as
contributing to the loss of other individuals. Whoever thoughtlessly
leaves his check book in accessible places incurs the jeopardy of
community and personal loss, seeing that “paper hangers” are vigilant
in the search for these. A locked desk drawer is not sufficient
protection as a “jimmy” will pry open any furniture lock.
As for confidence men, that satirical old saying “There’s a new sucker
born every minute” is so true that the task of educating them all to
the folly of entertaining get-rich-schemes is quite beyond the power
of even a wise man. The shortest and safest rule for self protection
against misrepresentation is “Don’t do it in a hurry.” Take your time;
if the proposition is good it will keep for a day or so; besides it
will bear full investigation. If you are considering the investment
of any sum of money in somebody’s else scheme don’t be too proud or
stubborn to seek the advice of a man of large affairs and unquestioned
integrity--your banker, for instance, or your legal adviser. If you
have no relations with either of these professions consult your
friend. Anyway, take it easy, take it easy and don’t swallow the
hook at one gulp. This will be especially difficult to avoid if
your cupidity be aroused, provided, of course, you be burdened with
such excess emotional baggage. If you make wagers with strangers or
casual acquaintances you are a candidate for the mourner’s bench, and
sometimes all your regrets and the best efforts of the police are of
no avail to bring back a single dollar of your loss. You simply pay so
much money for so little experience, which may be likened to a mule’s
kick, not being worth anything when acquired.
As for pickpockets know these things: If you must carry money on your
person carry it in an inside vest pocket, or nearer in yet if possible.
And don’t keep your hand on it, nor feel of it every once in a while
to see if it is still there, lest a pickpocket observe your concern
is solicitous and shortly cause you to learn that it is not there but
elsewhere; just where no man may be able to inform you.
Avoid crowds if you carry money on your person and do not be too
eager in the press when boarding or alighting from street cars, when
leaving a theatre or other public gathering, or when seeking a vantage
point at a fire or other unusual spectacle. For it is in these places
that they do it. It may be your house rent, or your entire savings,
or your employer’s or your friend’s money that you are carrying, but
if you must carry money don’t exhibit it nor get in a jamb. If you
observe these suggestions the only opportunity the pickpocket will
find to relieve you of valuables will be when you are intoxicated or
hypnotized. Women who carry money in a hand purse or bag on the street,
especially at night or in crowded places, run an even greater risk
of loss than do men, for there are ten amateur pickpockets, maybe a
score, to every one who by practice has acquired the skill necessary to
extract valuables from the person, and the amateurs operate on women
chiefly, finding little difficulty in opening a hand bag and extracting
a purse therefrom in a jamb. The fairs and carnivals on the Pacific
Coast in 1915 will call many of these gentry from the East.
Greater familiarity with the ways of criminals could be acquired if
the department of public safety were provided with the means for
organizing and maintaining a publicity bureau whose operatives should
be charged with the duties of developing measures for preventing crime
by circulating all the information available upon the subject. Against
this proposal will be offered the objection that too many are already
familiar with criminal methods. On the contrary, though, the fact of
the matter is that too few are prepared by foreknowledge of the proper
means for defeating the propagation of criminal actions.
The present system maintained by each community leans more toward
a cleansing of the locality of criminals by “floating” them off to
another locality than it does toward either prevention or permanent
suppression of criminals. These delinquent ones are as much the
nation’s wards as are the hundred-odd thousand dependent Indians or
the insane. While a great step in advance of old customs has been
taken by the adoption of the indeterminate sentence law, so long as
the individual who has repeatedly demonstrated his propensities for
moral obliquity is merely restrained and not improved both physically
and intellectually just that long will he continue to be a thorn in
the side of law-abiding society. And he will not be improved until you
demand that he shall. When a man’s principles and actions square with
each other you are impotent to convince him of his wrongness and your
rightness; and if punishment, the punishment of confinement, cannot
awaken a higher feeling of responsibility in the convict how can you
hope to eradicate his evil by hiding it from your sight, by consigning
him to a living limbo? This accusation against society’s present
methods could not be made without fear of refutation if it could be
shown that the ratio of criminals to population has diminished in the
past fifty years. But it has increased rather than diminished, which
points out the fact that there is a palpable flaw in the system of
apprehending, convicting and imprisoning criminals at such tremendous
expense. A sincerer effort must be made to lift up the delinquent if
lasting good is to come from our peace measures within the house.
MODERN PRINTING CO.
PORTLAND, OREGON
Transcriber’s Note
Some words are clearly typos, and those appear in the list of
corrections below. But some words are clearly malapropisms or even
unique constructions, , which have been left as in the original.
All footnotes are the transcriber’s explanations for odd usage or
missing cross-referenced items.
Missing punctuation, such as missing opening or closing quotes, has
been silently corrected.
Font representation
• Italic text represented by _underlines_
• Small caps converted to ALL CAPS
Corrections
• p. 9: typo _stimullation_ corrected to _stimulation_
• p. 11: change _over-head_ to _overhead_ to make usage consistent
• p. 15: change _PUTEMUP_ to _PUT-EM-UP_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 15: change _SMOKEWAGON_ to _SMOKE WAGON_ to match the
cross-referenced entry
• p. 18: typo _unitiated_ corrected to _uninitiated_
• p. 18: typo _complimentary_ corrected to _complementary_
• p. 21: added _BUMP OFF_ to match a cross reference
• p. 26: change _saw-buck_ to _sawbuck_ to make usage consistent
• p. 26: change _jack-pot_ to _jackpot_ to make usage consistent
• p. 27: typo _physyician_ corrected to _physician_
• p. 27: typo _BRAKES_ corrected to _BREAKS_ (changed the title to
match the usage of the example text)
• p. 34: changed _TWIST_ to _TWISTED_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 37: changed _RINGERS_ to _RINGER_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 38: typo _SNEEZEZD_ corrected to _SNEEZED_
• p. 41: typo _construtcive_ corrected to _constructive_
• p. 41: changed _YEN-YEN_ to _YEN YEN_ for consistency
• p. 44: changed _BOOST_ to _BOOSTER_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 45: changed _FLUZY_ to _FLUZIE_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 47 and 48: changed _JACK POT_ to _JACKPOT_ to match the
cross-referenced entry
• p. 52: changed _HOOK_ to _HOOKS_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 57: typo _gratituous_ corrected to _gratuitous_
• p. 61: typo _throuh_ corrected to _through_
• p. 74: changed _RINGERS_ to _RINGER_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 75: changed _RAPPED_ to _RAP_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 76: changed _ear-ring_ to _earring_ to make usage consistent
• p. 81: typo _snonym_ corrected to _synonym_
• p. 81: changed _NECK_ to _NECKING_ to match the cross-referenced
entry
• p. 85: changed _noncriminal_ to _non-criminal_ to make usage
consistent
• p. 86: changed _pocket-book_ to _pocketbook_ to make usage
consistent
• p. 86: typo _Se_ corrected to _She_
• p. 95: typo _Pizzaro_ corrected to _Pizarro_
• p. 100: typo _secruity_ corrected to _security_
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