ab. 1850. Leben in London. W. Moncrieff's Life in London, Dutch, Englishe, und Deutsche voten und ein Worter fuch der Vulgar Tongue, fur Englische lernende und England Besuchonde erlautert von H. Croll, English Text, with Annotations in German and English, and a copious and very curious Slang Dictionary. 12mo, pp. 230. Stuttgart.

1851-61. MAYHEW, HENRY. London Labour and the London Poor. Four volumes.

1852. SNOWDEN,

The Magistrate's Assistant and Constable's

Guide. With a Glossary of the Flash Language. 8vo.

Describes the various orders of beggars, cadgers, and swindlers. 1856. HALL, B. H. Collection of College Words and Customs. 12mo. Cambridge, U.S.

1856. MICHEL, FRANCISQUE. Etudes de Philologie Comparée sur l'Argot, et sur les Idiomes Analogues parles en Europe et en Asie. 8vo. Didot, Paris.

Contains glossaries of English, Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Russian, and Asian Slang, as well as that of Quack Doctors and the Bakers of Albania. The author's residence in many of the countries gave him opportunities of acquiring trustworthy information.

1857. MAYHEW, HENRY. The Great World of London.

8vo.

Unfinished. Contains several illustrations of the use and application of Cant and Slang words.

1859. The Vulgar Tongue: a Glossary of Slang, Cant, and Flash Words and Phrases used in London from 1839 to 1859, and a Bibliography of Canting and Slang Literature; by Ducange Anglicus. 8vo.

66

An edition in 12mo appeared in 1857. Described by Mr. Hotten as

'a silly and childish performance, full of blunders and contradictions."

1859. The Book of Vagabonds and Beggars, with a Vocabulary of their Language. Edited by Martin Luther in 1528; now first translated into English, with Introduction and Notes, by J. C. Hotten. Small 4to, with woodcuts.

Only continental cant, many words of which, however, are used in England, and especially by gypsies.

1859. [HOTTEN, J. CAMDEN]. The Slang Dictionary; or the Vulgar Words, Street Phrases, and Fast Expressions of High and Low Society, many with their Etymology, and a few with their History traced. 8vo.

1860. The same.

1864. The same.

Second edition.

Third Edition and Tenth Thousand.

Other editions have followed. In the preface to his 1864 issue Mr. Hotten said the first edition contained about 3,000 words; the second edition, published twelve months later, gave upwards of 5,000; whilst the third offered nearly 10,000 words and phrases. The work contains a History of Cant, or the secret language of vagabonds; an account of

the hieroglyphics used by them; and remarks on fashionable, parliamentary, military, university, religious, legal, literary, theatrical, civic, shopkeepers', workmen's, and costermongers' Slang. The Dictionary occupies pp. 65-274, and there are separate glossaries of Back or Costermongers' Slang, pp. 280-284, and Rhyming Slang, pp. 289-292. 1870. JERVIS, Captain. The A. B. C. of a New Dictionary of Flash Cant, Slang, and Vulgar Words, Proverbs and Provincialisms, compiled for the special use of Old Shipmates and Friends. Foolscap 8vo, for private circulation only. Jersey. 1870.

Not published, and very few copies printed. The three Letters A. B. and C. are all that were done.

1877. Stock Exchange Terms. Art. in Financial Opinion, No. 22, July 26, 1877, p. 5.

BOOKS ON AMERICANISMS.

AMERICANISMS are words and phrases current in the United States of America, and partially in Canada, and not current in England. The circumstances of the early settlement of the several States, and other causes, have led to marked differences in the vocabulary of the various districts. Thus, the New England, Middle, Southern, and Western States have their own peculiarities of speech, and since the gold discoveries in California a digger's dialect may be said to have developed itself in the extreme west of the country. The characteristic features of the several divisions (with some account of their origin and critical comments on the books professing to illustrate the various dialects) are well described by Mr. Charles A. Bristed in an article on the English language in America, published in the Cambridge Essays for 1855.

Referring first to the "Yankee" dialect, or that spoken in the veritable Yankee-land, the New England States, Mr. Bristed says there is no want of books written in it, and "while such books usually have the fault of academic Latin, namely, that of being too idiomatic, several of them give a fair idea of the popular dialect in these States. The English reader's thoughts will naturally revert to Judge Haliburton, and certainly Sam Slick is often to the point here, but he must be taken with some grains of salt; his Yankeeisms are interspersed with a good many Westernisms and much general slang.. Among books written by Americans. themselves, the two Jack Downings (Seba Smith's and Davis's) deserve to be particularised. Better and more recent than these, more easy also to follow in its allusions, is Lowell's laughter-moving satire on slavery and the Mexican war, the Bigelow Papers. The glossary at the end of the Bigelow Papers, though occasionally

satirical, is mostly in sober earnest, and affords a tolerable proof that American as well as English polite readers would occasionally meet in the text with difficulties requiring elucidation."

In the Middle States there are very few expressions peculiar to the New Yorkers. "At the same time," says Mr. Bristed, "there are some striking words of Dutch origin, we may almost say literally Dutch words, which, originating in the city of New York when it was the city or town of New Amsterdam, have thence spread all over the Union, and become generally received, as it was natural they should from the almost metropolitan position of their birthplace. The Dutch as a living language no longer exists in the State of New York. New Jersey was settled by Swedes, but the original settlers have left no traces of their language, though some Swedish family names exist in that State and the adjoining one of Pennsylvania. Some of the largest counties in Pennsylvania were settled by Germans, whose descendants at present amount to nearly one-fourth the population of the State. These Germans, who are generally designated by their neighbours as Dutch (Deutsch), continue to use their language to the present day. Is, then, it may be asked, the common Pennsylvania dialect at all corrupted with Teutonisms? Not at all; you will never hear anything like German in the non-German part of the State, except, perhaps, an occasional slang phrase.

"The older Southern States are of English, and purely English, settlement. Few marked and notorious peculiarities of expression suggest themselves as attached to the inhabitants of Virginia and the Carolinas. The small, cheap, illustrated collections of Southern Scenes and Sketches often give a juster idea of the popular dialect than more pretentious works of fiction. In some of these sketches, passages occur now and then which read very like a description of the Cannibal Islands by one of the head chiefs; but their value is none the less for philological purposes.

"On arriving at the Great West,' the inquirer is forced to hesitate; the materials for his investigation are abundant, but they nearly all encroach on the forbidden ground of 'slang.'

"Louisiana was colonised by the French, and several smaller settlements were made by them all along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. We might, therefore, suppose that the phraseology of the west and south-west would contain Gallicisms. Very few such traces, however, can be detected, although the French language continues to be spoken in New Orleans, half of which is virtually a French town to this day. Nor has the sonorous Castilian, despite the settlement of Florida, the traffic with Cuba, and even the temporary conquest of Mexico, left more numerous traces."

1761. WITHERSPOON, JOHN, D.D. Essays on Americanisms, Perversions of Language in the United States, and Cant Phrases. In the Fourth volume of his Works, published in 1801. 8vo. Philadelphia.

The earliest known work on Americanisms. Originally published as a series of essays, entitled the Druid, a periodical which appeared in 1761.

1816. PICKERING, JOHN. Vocabulary or Collection of Words and Phrases which have been supposed to be peculiar to the United States of America. To which is prefixed an Essay on the Present State of the English Language in the United States. 8vo. Boston, Mass.

Marked in Trübner and Co.'s Catalogue, 1876, as VERY SCARCE, and priced one guinea.

817. WEBSTER, NOAH. Letter to the Hon. John Pickering on the Subject of his Vocabulary or Collection of Words and Phrases supposed to be peculiar to the United States. 8vo, pp. 69, Boston.

1827. SHERWOOD, Rev. ADIEL. Gazetteer of the State of Georgia,

U.S. Small 8vo. Charleston.

Contains a Glossary of Slang and Vulgar Words, peculiar to the Southern States. Second edition, Philadelphia, 1829; third edition, Washington, 1837.

1830. BECK, T. ROMEYN. Notes on Mr. Pickering's Vocabulary of Americanisms, in the Transactions of the Albany Institute, 1830, Vol. I.

1848. BARTLETT, JOHN RUSSELL. Dictionary of Americanisms: a Glossary of Words and Phrases usually regarded as peculiar to the United States. 8vo, pp. 412. New York.

1858. The same. Second edition.