Peter

Great Peter. A bell in York Minster, weighing 10 3/4 tons, and hung in 1845.

Lord Peter. The Pope in Swift’s Tale of a Tub.

Rob Peter to pay Paul. (See Robbing.)

St. Peter. Patron saint of fishers and fishmongers, being himself a fisherman.

St. Peter, in Christian art, is represented as an old man, bald, but with a flowing beard; he is usually dressed in a white mantle and blue tunic, and holds in his hand a book or scroll. His peculiar symbols are the keys, and a sword, the instrument of his martyrdom.

He has got St. Peter’s fingers—i.e. the fingers of a thief. The allusion is to the fish caught by St. Peter with a piece of money in its mouth. They say that a thief has a fish-hook on every finger.