COURT OF ASSISTANTS. A court often applied to by young women who marry old men.

Cow. To sleep like a cow, with a **** at one's a-se; said of a married man; married men being supposed to sleep with their backs towards their wives, according to the fol lowing proclamation :

All you that in your beds do lie,
Turn to your wives, and occupy:
And when that you have done your best,
Turn a-se to a-se, and take your rest.

Cow's BABY. A calf.

Cow's COURANT. Gallop and sh---e.

Cow-HANDED. Awkward.

Cow-HEARTED.

Fearful.

Cow ITCH. The product of a sort of bean, which excites an insufferable itching, used chiefly for playing tricks.

Cow's SPOUSE. A bull.

Cow's THUMB. Done to a cow's thumb; done exactly. CoxсOMB. Anciently, a fool. Fools, in great families, wore a cap with bells, on the top of which was a piece of red cloth, in the shape of a cock's comb. At present, coxcomb signifies a fop, or vain self-conceited fellow. CRAB. To catch a crab; to fall backwards by missing one's stroke in rowing.

CRAB LANTHORN. A peevish fellow.

CRAB LOUSE. A species of louse peculiar to the human body; the male is denominated a cock, the female a hen.

CRAB SHELLS. Shoes. Irish.

CRABS. A losing throw to the main at hazard.
CRABBED. Sour, ill-tempered, difficult.

CRACK. A whore.

TO CRACK. To boast or brag; also to break. I cracked his napper; I broke his head.

THE CRACK, Or ALL THE CRACK. The fashionable theme, the go. The Crack Lay, of late is used, in the cant language, to signify the art and mystery of house-breaking. CRACKER. Crust, sea biscuit, or ammunition loaf; also the backside. Farting crackers; breeches. CRACKISH. Whorish.

CRACKING TOOLS. Implements of house-breaking, such as a crów, a center bit, false keys, &c.

CRACKMANS. Hedges. The cull thought to have loped by breaking through the crackmans, but we fetched him back by a nope on the costard, which stopped his jaw; the man thought to have escaped by breaking through the hedge,

E

but

but we brought him back by a great blow on the head, which laid him speechless. CRACKSMAN. A house-breaker.

The kiddy is a clever cracksman; the young fellow is a véry expert house- brea

ker. CRAG.

The neck.

CRAMP RINGS. Bolts, shackles, or fetters. Cant.

CRAMP WORDS. Sentence of death passed on a criminal by a judge. He has just undergone the cramp word; sentence has just been passed on him. Cant.

CRANK. Gin and water; also, brisk, pert.

CRANK. The falling sickness.

Cant.

TO CRASH. To kill. Crash that cull; kill that fellow. Cant. CRASHING CHEATS.

Teeth.

CRAW THUMPERS. Roman catholics, so called from their beating their breasts in the confession of their sins. See BRISKET BEATER, and BREAST FLEET.

CREAM-POT LOVE. Such as young fellows pretend to dairymaids, to get cream and other good things from them. TO CREEME. To slip or slide any thing into the hands of another. Cant.

CREEPERS, Gentlemen's companions, lice.

CREW. A knot or gang; also a boat or ship's company. The canting crew are thus divided into twenty-three orders, which see under the different words:

CRIB. A house. To crack a crib: to break open a house.
To CRIB. To purloin, or appropriate to one's own use,
part of any thing intrusted to one's care.
TO FIGHT A CRIB. To make a sham fight.

term.

Bear Garden

CRIBBAGE

ACRIBBAGE-FACED. Marked with the small pox, the pits bearing a kind of resemblance to the holes in a cribbageboard. CRIBBEYS, or CRIBBY ISLANDS. Blind alleys, courts, or bye-ways; perhaps from the houses built there being cribbed out of the common way or passage; and islands, from the similarity of sound to the Caribbee Islands. CRIM. CON. MONEY. Damages directed by a jury to be paid by a convicted adulterer to the injured husband, for criminal conversation with his wife.

CRIMP. A broker or factor, as a coal crimp, who disposes of the cargoes of the Newcastle coal ships; also persons employed to trapan or kidnap recruits for the East Indian and African companies. To crimp, or play crimp; to play foul or booty: also a cruel manner of cutting up fish alive, practised by the London fishmongers, in order to make it eat firm; cod, and other crimped fish, being a favourite dish among voluptuaries and epicures.

CRINKUM CRANKUM. A woman's commodity. See SPEC

TATOR.

CRINKUMS. The foul or venereal disease.

CRIPPLE. Sixpence, that piece being commonly much bent and distorted.

CRISPIN. A shoemaker: from a romance, wherein a prince of that name is said to have exercised the art and mystery of a shoemaker, thence called the gentle craft: or rather from the saints Crispinus and Crispianus, who according to the legend, were brethren born at Rome, from whence they travelled to Soissons in France, about the year 303, to propagate the Christian religion; but, because they would not be chargeable to others for their maintenance, they exercised the trade of shoemakers: the governor of the town discovering them to be Christians, ordered them to be beheaded, about the year 303; from which time they have been the tutelar saints of the shoemakers. CRISPIN'S HOLIDAY. Every Monday throughout the year, but most particularly the 25th of October, being the an niversary of Crispinus and Crispianus.

CRISPIN'S LANCE. An awl.

CROAKER. One who is always foretelling some accident or misfortune: an allusion to the croaking of a raven, supposed ominous. CROAKUMSHIRE. Northumberland, from the particular croaking in the pronunciation of the people of that county, especially about Newcastle and Morpeth, where they are said to be born with a burr in their throats, which prevents their pronouncing the letter r. CROAKERS

E 2

CROAKERS. Forestallers, called also Kidders and Tranters, CROCODILE'S TEARS. The tears of a hypocrite. Crocodiles

are fabulously reported to shed tears over their prey before they devour it.

CROCUS, OF CROCUS METALLORUM. A nick name for a surgeon of the army and navy.

CROKER. A groat, or four pence.

CRONE. An old ewe whose teeth are worn out; figuratively, a toothless old beldam.

CRONY. An intimate companion, a comrade; also a confederate in a robbery.

CROOK. Sixpence.

CROOK BACK. Sixpence: for the reason of this name, see CRIPPLE.

CROOK YOUR ELBOW. To crook one's elbow, and wish it may never come straight, if the fact then affirmed is not true-according to the casuists of Bow-street and St. Giles's, adds great weight and efficacy to an oath. CROOK SHANKS. A nick name for a man with bandy legs. He buys his boots in Crooked Lane, and his stockings in Bandy-legged Walk; his legs grew in the night, there fore could not see to grow straight: jeering sayings of men with crooked legs.

CROP. A nick name for a presbyterian: from their cropping their hair, which they trimmed close to a bowl-dish, placed as a guide on their heads; whence they were likewise called roundheads. See ROUNDHEADS.

CROP. To be knocked down for a crop; to be condemned to be hanged. Cropped, hanged.

CROPPING DRUMS. Drummers of the foot guards, or Chelsea hospital, who find out weddings, and beat a point of war to serenade the new married couple, and thereby ob tain money.

CROPPEN. The tail. The croppen of the rotan; the tail of the cart. Croppen ken: the necessary house. Cant. CROPSICK. Sickness in the stomach, arising from drunken

ness.

CROSS. To come home by weeping cross; to repent at the conclusion.

CROSS DISHONEST. A cross cove; any person who lives by stealing or in a dishonest manner. CROSS BITE. One who combines with a sharper to draw in a friend; also, to counteract or disappoint. Cant.-This is peculiarly used to signify entrapping a man so as to obtain erin. con. money, in which the wife, real or supposed, conspires with the husband.

CROSS BUTTOCK. A particular lock or fall in the Brough

tonian

tonian art, which, as Mr. Fielding observes, conveyed more pleasant sensations to the spectators than the patient. CROSS PATCH. A peevish boy or girl, or rather an unsocial ill-tempered man or woman.

TO CROW. To brag, boast, or triumph. To crow over any one; to keep him in subjection: an image drawn from a cock, who crows over a vanquished enemy. To pluck a crow; to reprove any one for a fault committed, to settle a dispute. To strut like a crow in a gutter; to walk proudly, or with an air of consequence.

CROWD. A fiddle: probably from crooth, the Welch name for that instrument.

CROWDERO. A fiddler.

CROWDY. Oatmeal and water, or milk; a mess much eaten in the north.

CROW FAIR. A visitation of the clergy. See REVIEW OF THE BLACK CUIRASSIERS.

CROWN OFFICE. The head. I fired into her keel upwards; my eyes and limbs Jack, the crown office was full; Is-k-d a woman with her a--e upwards, she was so drunk, that her head lay on the ground.

CRUISERS. Beggars, or highway spies, who traverse the road, to give intelligence of a booty; also rogues ready to snap up any booty that may offer, like privateers or pirates on a cruise.

CRUMMY. Fat, fleshy. A fine crummy dame; a 'fat woman. He has picked up his crumbs finely of late; he has grown very fat, or rich, of late.

CRUMP. One who helps solicitors to affidavit men, or false witnesses.--- I wish you had, Mrs. Crump;' a Gloucestershire saying, in answer to a wish for any thing; implying, you must not expect any assistance from the speaker. It is said to have originated from the following incident: One Mrs. Crump, the wife of a substantial farmer, dining with the old Lady Coventry, who was extremely deaf,said to one of the footmen, waiting at table, I wish I had a draught of small beer,' her modesty not permitting her to desire so fine a gentleman to bring it: the fellow, conscious that his mistress could not hear either the request or answer, replied, without moving, I wish you had, Mrs. Crump.' These wishes being again repeated by both parties, Mrs. Crump got up from the table to fetch it herself; and being asked by my lady where she was going, related what had passed. The story being told abroad, the expres sion became proverbial. CRUMP-BACKED. Hump-backed.

CRUSTY BEAU. One that uses paint and cosmetics, to obtain a fine complexion.

CRUSTY