A tight waistcoat, with long sleeves coming over the hand, having strings for binding them behind the back of the wearer: these waistcoats are used in madhouses for the management of lunatics when outrageous.
Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.
Strait-laced * StrammelNathan Bailey's 1736 Dictionary of canting and thieving slang
John S. Farmer's collection of canting songs and slang rhymes