CURTAILS,
whose Practice is to cut off Pieces of Silk, Cloth, Linnen or Stuff, that hang out at the Shop-Windows of Mercers, Drapers, &c. as also sometimes the Tails of Womens Gowns, their Hoods, Scarves, Pinners, - if richly Lac'd.
Curtails in the 1811 Vulgar Tongue
Also see examples in Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes collected by John S. Farmer (1896).