/ · John S. Farmer’s Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
Rum Coves that Relieve us
Rum Coves that Relieve us
1887
By HEINRICH BAUMANN in Londonismen.
I
Rum coves that relieve us
1 thieves
Of clunkers and pieces,
2 money
Is gin’rally lagged,
3 imprisoned
Or wuss luck gets scragg’d.
4 hung
II
Are smashers and divers
5 counterfeiters; pickpockets
And noble contrivers
Not sold to the beaks
6 magistrates
By the coppers an’ sneaks?
7 police; informers
III
Yet moochin’ arch-screevers,
8 prowling; begging letter writers
Concoctin’ deceivers,
Chaps as reap like their own
What by tothers were sown;
IV
Piratical fakers
9 writers of "blood and thunder"
Of bosh by the acres,
These muck-worms of trash
Cut, oh, a great dash.
V
But, there, it don’t matter
Since, to cut it still fatter,
By ’ook and by crook
Ve’ve got up this book.
VI
Tell ye ’ow? Vy in rum kens,
10 queer places
In flash cribs and slum dens,
11 thieves’ resorts
I’ the alleys and courts,
’Mong the doocedest sorts;
VII
When jawin’ with Jillie
Or Mag and ’er Billie,
Ve shoved down in black
Their illigant clack.
12 talk
VIII
So from hartful young dodgers,
From vaxy old codgers,
13 men
From the blowens ve got
14 prostitutes
Soon to know vot is vot.
IX
Now then there is yer sumptuous
Tuck-in of most scrumptious,
And dainty mag-pie!
15 speech
Will ye jes’ come and try?
Notes
Heinrich Baumann, the author of Londonism en, an English-German
glossary of cant and slang, to which “Rum Coves that Relieve us” forms
the preface.
Taken from
Musa Pedestris,
Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
[1536―1896], collected and annotated by John S. Farmer.
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