What is the meaning of this ?

While the next person of history is picked to be presented, and because while searching for a few words I stumbled across this, enjoy a bit of : What's the meaning of this?

There are few words found in a Classical dictionary of Vulgar words. While not only explaining the meaning of these words, we are able to cast  a glimpse of the lives, the society itself and sometimes even just have a chuckle at the expressions used. Be warned about some words that might be somewhat crude.


Seamen games:

ABEL-WACKETS: Blows given on the palm of the hand wit ha twisted handkerchief, instead of a ferula. This is a jocular punishment among seamen, who sometimes play at cards for wackets, the loser suffering as many strokes as he has lost games. ( In the old days of sail , a very popular forecastle game - the word was absolete by 1883)

AMBASSADOR: A trick to duck some ignorant fellow or landsman, frequently played aboard ships in warm latitudes. It is played thus: A large tub is filled with water, and two stools are placed on each side of it. A tarpawlin or an old sail is thrown over the whole. This is kept tight by two persons, who are to represent the king and queen of a foreign country, and are seated on the stools. The person intended to be ducked plays the ambassador, and after repeating a ridiculous speech dictated to him, is led in great form to the throne, and seated between the king and the queen. They rise suddenly as soon as he is seated, so he falls backwards in the tub of water.

ARTHUR, KING: A game used at sea, when near the line, or in a hot latitude. It is played thus: A man who is to represent the King Arthur, ridiculously dressed, having a large wig, made out of oakum or of some old swabs, is seated on the side, or over a large vessel of water. Every person in his turn is to be ceremoniously introduced to him, and to pour a bucket of water over him, crying: "Hail, King Arthur!" If during this ceremony a person introduced smiles or laughs (to which his majesty endevours to excite him in all manners of ridiculous gesticulations) , he changes place and becomes the new King Arthur.

Thieves:

ABRAM COVE: A cant word among thieves, signifying a naked or poor man: Also a lusty, strong rogue.

ADAM TILER: A pickpocket's associate, who receives the stolen goods and runs off with them.

AMUSE, TO: To fling dust or snuff in the eyes of the person intended to be robbed; also to invent some plausible tale to delude shopkeepers and others, there by to put them of their guard.

AMUSERS: The rogues who carried snuff or dust in their pockets, which they threw into the eyes of the persons they intended to rob. They ran away, while  their accomplices, pretending to pity and assist the half-blinded person, took the opportunity of plundering him.

ANABAPTIST: A pickpocket who was caught in the fact, and punished by the pump or the horse-pond.

ANGLERS: Petty thieves or pilferers, who used a stick which had a hook at the end and with it stole goods out of shop windows, grates, etc.

ARCH ROGUE: (DIMBER DAMBER UPRIGHT MAN) The chief of a gang of thieves or gypsies.

ARCH DELL, DOXY: The same in rank as the chief of a gang, among the female canters or gypsies.

ARK RUFFIANS: Rogues, who, in conjunction with watermen, robbed, and sometimes murdered on the water, by picking a quarrel with the passengers in a boat, bordering it, plundering, stripping and throwing them overboard.

AUTEM DIVERS: Pickpockets who practice in churches; also churchwardens and overseers of the poor.

AUTEM MORT: A female beggar with several children hired or borrowed to excite charity. (also a married woman)

AVOIR DU POIS LAY: Stealing brass weights of the counters of shops.

BADGERS: A crew of desperate villians, who robbed near the rivers in which they threw the bodies of those they murdered.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Rogues of the same gang.

BLACK ART: The art of picking a lock.

BLUE PIDGEONS: Thieves who steal lead of houses and churches.

BOARDING SCHOOL: Bridewell, Newgate, or any other prison or house of correction.

BOB: A shoplifter's assistant, or one that receives and carries off goods.

CLICK, TO: To snatch, to catch, to snatch away.

FOOT PADS: Robbers who rob on foot.

FORK: A pickpocket. (To fork, to pick sb pocket)

FOYST: A pickpocket, cheat or rogue. (To foyst, to pick sb. pocket)

FREE BOOTERS: Lawless robbers and plunderers, originally soldiers who served without pay, for the privilege plundering the enemy.

WAGGON LAY: Waiting in the street to rob wagons going out or coming into town, both commonly happening in the dark.

WIPER DRAWER: A pickpocket who steals handkerchiefs.


Drunkenness and its vices:

ADMIRAL OF THE NARROW SEAS: One who from drunkenness vomits into the lap of the person sitting opposite him.

ACCOUNTS, TO CAST UP ONE'S: To vomit.

ALTITUDES, THE MAN IN HIS: A man who is drunk.

BARN MOUSE, BIT BY A: Tipsy, probably from an allusion to barley.

BARREL FEVER, DIED OF: He killed himself by drinking.

BINGO BOY: A dram drinker.

BINGO: Brandy or other spirituous liqour.

BLACK EYE, giving the bottle a: Drinking it almost up.

BOOSE: Drink,  the modern form of the word appeared in 1714.

BOOSEY: Drunk.

BUBBER: A drinking bowl, a great drinker. Also, a thief that steals plate from public houses.

CLEAR, to be: To be drunk.

FOXED: Intoxicated.

HOCKEY: Drunk with strong stale beer.

SHITTING THROUGH THE TEETH: Vomiting.

SHOOT THE CAT, to (catting): To vomit from the excess of liquor.


Other:

ABRAM MEN: Pretend mad men. IN 18th and 19th century the term is used for the beggars who pretended that they were old naval ratings, cast on the streets when their services were finished with.

ADDLE PLOT: A spoilsport, a mar-all.

ALL HOLLOW: It was a decided thing from the beginning.

BACK GAMMON PLAYER, (Also a gentleman of the back door): Sodomite

BALLUM RANCUM: A hop or dance where the women are all prostitutes. The company dance in their birth-day suits.

BATTLE-ROYAL: A battle or bout at cudgels or fisty-cuffs, where more than two persons are engaged. Also a battle between three, five or seven cocks, of which the one standing is deemed winner.

BELL SWAGGER: A noisy bullying fellow.

BLACK MONDAY: The first day of school after holidays or, in 17th century Navy the Monday in which the ship boys have received the beatings accumulated during the week.

BOB TAIL: An impotent man, an eunuch, a lewd woman that plays with her tail.

BOOTS: The youngest officer in a regimental mess, whose duty it is to skink - stir fire -, snuff the candles, and ring the bell.

FOOT WARBLER: A contemptuous expression referring to a foot soldier as used by the cavalry.

HISTORY OF THE FOUR KINGS (Child's best guide to the gallows) : A deck of cards. ( He studies the .... - he plays much at cards.)

HOBBERDEHOY: Neither boy nor yet a man.

HOCKING , HOUGHING: A piece of cruelty practiced by the butchers of Dublin on soldiers, where the Achilles tendon was cut.


Society and parts of body:

ANKLE, TO SPRAIN one's ANKLE: A girl was said to have sprained her ankle, when she was got with child.

APPLE DUMPLIN SHOP: A Woman's bossom.

ARBOR VITAE: a man's penis.

BAWBELS, BAWBLES Trinkets, a man's testicles

 BEARD SPLITTER: A man much given to wenching

BELLOWS : Lungs.

BLABBER, BONE BOX: Mouth.

BOWSPRIT: The nose, because it's the the most projecting part on a human.

TO BOX THE JESUIT, GET COCK ROACHES: A sea term for masturbation.

BREAD BASKET: The Stomach. (Used by boxers).

CLACK: The tongue, usually used for women.

HOCKS: Vulgar word for feet.

SIR REVERENCE: Human excrement.

WHORE - PIPE: The penis.

ZNEES: Frost or frozen.

ZOC (soc) : A blow. 18th,19th century to give one sock, meant give one a thorough beating or trashing.

Hannah Snell or James Gray

Hannah Snell or James Gray
( 23.4.1723  - 8.2.1792)

"Why gentlemen, James Gray will cast off his skin like a snake and become a new creature. In a word, gentlemen, I am as much a woman as my mother ever was, and my real name is Hannah Snell."

 

Hannah Snell was born In Friar Street in the parish of St. Helens, Worcester. Her home town is described by D. Defoe as a not very well built city. It was an old town with closely packed houses and many people (10 000) , chiefly in clothing trade. it was a town that was actually rather well to do and was situated in the proximity of the river Severn.

The houses on Friar street date from several earlier centuries. One of them was, according to documents dated in 1748, called Swan and Falcon. In 1814 it was renamed to Coventry arms. At present time it is said to be again called by it's original name, which before the 1748 was the Cardinal's Hat. Wall's bakery is another such place, that would have been known to Hannah Snell. It had begun in operation in 1656 and lasted all till mid-1970s. It was due to some of the family members more interested in money than baking, that it had to be eventually closed, ending the long history of baking and good gooey lardy cakes for which they were known.  From medieval times Worcester was also a centre of glove trade and it is said that one of the oldest of newspapers in England, Berrow's Worcester Journal (from 1690), comes from this area. 

Early life:  She was the eight of nine children - 3 sons and 6 daughters. All but one daughter either became or married to soldiers or sailors.  Their father was the hosier and dyer Samuel Snell (born 1680), and their first mother Elizabeth Marston, a daughter of a shoemaker. Samuel and Elizabeth married in 1702. In 1709, after the death of Elizabeth, Samuel Snell remarried to Mary Williams, who was at the time, 25 years old. It appears that Hannah was the child of the latter Mary Williams. Her grandfather was a lieutenant Samuel Snell, who fought at Namur, serving under King William and also fought in Queen Anne's wars. As a dyer, his son, also named Samuel Snell, made his living in the textile industry. The eldest of the son's, yet again named Samuel, enlisted himself a soldier in Lord Robert Manner's company of the First Foot Guards, commanded by the Duke of Cumberland. He was draughted to go to Flanders, and received a mortal wound at Fontenoy. He expired at Doway.

At the early age of 10 Hannah already enjoyed putting on an uniform of a soldier. She is said to have paraded a company of boys and girls down the streets of Worcester and acted as chief-commander at their head. There is an account which claims that this little company was called the (Young) Amazon Snell's company. Her other sisters were thought genteel and amiable. She received rudimentary education where she learned to read, but not write.

After the death of her father and mother, she arrived in London on a Christmas day in 1740. She was to stay at her sister's, Susannah, who was married to James Gray. Susannah was at the time 32 years old, and possibly the daughter of Elizabeth Snell. James Gray, at the time 37, was a house carpenter. They lived in Ship street, Wapping, where they had a small house.  It is here that she becomes acquainted with a James Summs, a Dutch sailor.

Marriage: One source suggests that Hannah was married to James Summs in 1743, while another gives the place of Fleet and the date of 6.1.1744. Her husband treated her with great inhumanity and engaged in illegal activities with other women, and even took her possessions to fund this life of luxury and the daily expanses of whores. He also despised her and proved that she had made a poor evaluation of his character when she accepted to marry him. Hannah was to receive her first child in the year of 1745, at 22 years of age. With her becoming larger due to pregnancy her marriage deteriorated further and he fell into debt.  When she was 7 months pregnant he abandoned her and took the remaining of her possessions, possibly because of the debt that he found himself in. He then left the country. Two months later she gave birth to a girl, Susannah. She moved back to Ship street to her sister. Her daughter grew sickly and after seven months, died. She was given a decent burial in the Parish of St. George, Middlesex.

Upon her daughter's death Hannah decided to pursue her deceitful husband (though a different source does not suggest she had any such intention), and it was at this time that she changed her identity. She disguised herself as a man and took the clothes of  her brother-in-law, James Gray, to make her journey safer. She did not inform her sister of her intentions and left on 23. November 1745. Women traveling alone were often unheard of in the higher circles, but were not a safe commodity even for women of lesser standing. She then left for Coventry.

Service: Four days after the departure from London she arrived in Coventry, and there enlisted on 27. November 1745 in General Guise's regiment, Captain Miller's company. After three weeks there she and 17 other recruits have been sent to join Guise's regiment in Carlisle, of Duke of Northumberland's army and marched in the pursuit of the fleeing troops of Bonnie Prince Charlie. It took them 22 days to reach their destination and left Hannah equally tired as her peers.

She is said to have stayed there for some time and in that time met sergeant Davis, who asked her to assist him in seducing a girl with criminal inclination in mind. Upon knowing this rather than becoming his accomplice as the sergeant had envisioned her being, she went to this maid and warned her of his intentions and suggested she avoids him. The girl broke all contact with the sergeant and in turn, because of the 'act of valour' became intimate friends with Hannah.  When the sergeant came and found them together, became jealous and believed that his earlier accomplice had become his rival.  Sergeant Davis then accused Hannah of neglect of duty to a superior officer and had her to be flogged with 600 lashes. However Hannah only received 500 lashes while tied to the gates of Carlisle castle, the latter 100 were remitted due to the interception of some officers. She is said to have concealed her identity because her breasts at the time had been still rather small and because she was facing the wall, and so they were concealed from the view of all.


A career change:  It was another man, that decided the next step in Hannah Snell's choice of action. George Beck, the new recruit that arrived at Carlisle could have been as any other, if not for the fact that he had been acquainted with Hannah during her stay at her sister's. Fearing, that he would recognise her and betray her true identity or perhaps also because of the ill treatment, Hannah decided to desert. She left on foot for Portsmouth, aided by her female friend, who gave her money.  After about a mile, she saw people working in the fields. Here she had exchanged her uniform coat for civilian clothing, which would enable her not to be discovered as easily.  She is said to have taken the old coat she found lying on the floor and left her regimental coat behind.  where she enlisted into marines, in colonel Frazer's regiment, Graham's company. Not even three weeks had passed before Hannah was sent in a draught onto H.M.S. Swallow, a sloop-of-war under the command  of Captain Rosier and part of Admiral Boscawen's fleet. Lieutenant Wyegate of the marines, observed her being good at washing and dressing victuals and took her into the officer's mess. There she was observed as a boy, and during battle was to be stationed on the quarterdeck to fight at small arms. She was also one of the after guard and was obliged to keep watch every four hours, night and day, and frequently to go aloft. 

Two terrible storms which Swallow suffered the force of, found Hannah also employed at the pumps. After a terrible hurricane, during which the Fleet was separated, Swallow sprung her main-mast, lost her gib-boom, top-masts, and made for Lisbon with great difficulty. When H.M.S. Swallow reached the Gibraltar, Hannah accompanied Lieutenant Wyegate at his lodgings and attended to him during a dangerous illness. After the refitting H.M.S. Swallow left for Madeira islands. Here a great quantity of wine and other provisions was taken into her, and after that the sloop proceeded to the Cape of Good Hope. On this passage however their provisions were shortened to but a pint of water a day.  They joined the admiral at Namure. They set off towards the French islands, on the east of Madagascar. After the failed attacks, Hannah signalized herself at the failed battle of St. Mauritius, the admiral decided they should abandon the place and set sail to Fort St. David's. Here Hannah, with the rest of the marines, joined with the English army. After about six weeks they arrived at Areacopong (Aria Coupan) and directly encamped. They carried the siege for nine days with vigour, and thought to storm the fortifications. However it was a shell that blew up the magazine and decided the victor, forcing the besieged to abandon their place.

During this Hannah, as part of the party then under lieutenant Campbell command, was sent to fetch up some stores from the waterside. While so doing they had several skirmishes, during which she is said to have killed the man who had right before the action  shot and killed her comrade, to her right. She was also near, when lieutenant Campbell was wounded.

Later on, army proceeded to Pondicherry. Here they remained for 11 weeks. In great part of the time they were up to their breast or middle in the water, exposed to the fire from the forts and without bread. The French kept a continuous fire at them from a battery of 12 guns. On the 11. August she was put on picquet-guard, and continued on the guard for seven successive nights. An attack was made in which Hannah fired 37 rounds, and was wounded six times in the right leg, had a musket ball in the groin area, and five more wounds in the left leg.  One version of the events claims that she extracted the musket ball herself, with a finger and thumb and nursed the wound in great pain on her own, while another suggests that she was nursed back to health by a black woman, who kept her secret and had access to medicine as well as surgical instruments. In this case of events the black was said to have brought her lint and salve to dress the wound with. This combination of healing salve seems to have worked and for the assistance the black woman was given a gift of one rupee. During her recovery she stayed at the Hospital Cuddylorum. It took her three months to recover. She was put on board Tartar Pink, since during her recovery most of the Fleet has sailed. She remained on board this ship, until the return of the fleet from Madras, performing the duties of a common sailor. 

She was then moved to H.M.S. Eltham, man-of-war under the command of Lloyd. Their next destination was Bombay. While captain Lloyd was on shore, the first lieutenant - then on watch - desired Hannah to sing. She refused to, excusing herself as not feeling well. He insisted and she openly refused his order, saying that to sing was in no form a soldier's duty. This resulted in her being sent to sit for five days in irons, to receive a dozen lashes at the gangway and was to be at the foretop mast head for four hours.Another account or perhaps the official accusation of the lieutenant's suggests that she had been punished for the theft of a seaman's shirt.

Her flogging on the ship, during which she again escaped recognition proceeded thus: her hands were tied to the gangway. She took upon herself to stand as errect and upright as possible, and to tie a large silk handkerchief around her neck the ends whereof entirely covered her breasts. Also because of the position of her arms as being as high, the breasts appeared smaller. At this time the boatswain indeed noted her breasts, and suggested  they were most like woman's he ever saw, but made nothing of it as at the time nobody yet doubted her sex.

The shirt was 'found' in the seachest of the man who was said to have lost it. He did receive some of his back, when upon the arrival in England a sailor let a block fall upon his head. This hurt him greatly and endangered his life.  Thereafter she was present on Eltham, during the hurricane, in which Namure, Pembroke and some of the other ships were lost.

While in Lisbon, she often went on shore and was to indulge in the schemes of 'pleasures' to avoid suspicion of her peers. While on one of such escapades they encountered an English sailor, who was at the time serving in a Dutch ship and had just recently come from Genoa. Some of the company knew him already, and took him in to join their party. Hannah tried her luck (after the sharing of their adventures), and asked the man whether he knew a Dutch by the name of James 'Jemmy' Summs. He had known him indeed, and he told them that Summs had been executed in Genoa, after he had stabbed a Genovese, a gentleman of some distinction, with the knife, a sneecker-snee, and killed him. But that the wound was rather than delivering an instant death, rather such that the man writhed in great agony for four days, before dying.  When visited in prison, he was said to have expressed great remorse at the ill treating of his wife, which he left in England. And that he wishes to repent for his sins, thinking his actions as the deepest stain on his person, and he not feeling dejected because of the soon to be execution, but rather of the crime he had committed. He was said to not have been executed publicly, but rather that he was sewed up in a bag, full of stones carrying enough weight to sink him, and then thrown head long into the sea.

On 3. May Eltham left Lisbon, and arrived at the Spithead on 1. June. So, the months of service she returned home with the rest of the fleet in the late 1749. Hannah went on shore often and took lodgings with several of her ship-mates in  the Jolly Marine and Sailor, in Portsmouth. While the house was full, she was made to share bed with a man, thus sleeping with two different onesduring her three day stay. One of them was a fellow shipmate from Eltham.  It was here that she again met with her female friend, that she warned about Davis and who had helped her desert.

After her pay, she decided to finally betray her sex. When her fellows discovered of it, the one who had been her bedfellow offered at once to marry her, yet she refused.  She posed as a man for about 4,5 years, and upon her return quickly revealed her secret to the excited crowd.  She presented a pentition to the head of the British Army, the Duke of Cumberland, requesting financial recognition for her service. While her case was examined she became rather popular in London, and her portrait was being sold on every street. There were atleast three painters that drew her in male attire. Her story  was also a bestseller. The King agreed to give her a lifelong pension of one shilling per day for life as an out-pensioner of Chelsea Hospital. By the end of 1750 her story was known all across the whole Britain.

After the service: Hannah Snell performed on London stage at Salders Wells, dressed in marine uniform, telling the audience of her adventures on the battlefield and performing drill. She also had her accounts published in 1750, entitled The Female Soldier, collected by R. Walker. The lord Mayor of London summoned her to attend him. Here she again confirmed her story to be true. She was similarly successful with the Duke of Cumberland, who added her name to the King's pension list. Believing it would be a possible success, after all the publicity, she retired to keep a public house. She named it The Female Warrier (the sign of which was supposed to represent part of her dressed in regimental dress on one side and on the other in marine dress - with the inscription: The widow in masquerade. This business did not prove to be a success. She married three times. Her second time was with Richard Eyles, a yourneyman carpenter on 3. November 1759, in Newbury, Berkshire, with whom she had two children. They married, while she was heavily pregnant, and later she gave birth to a son, naming him George Spence. Four years later she gave birth to a second son, Thomas. In 1772 she married Richard Habgood of Welford, they moved to Midlands .  In 1785 she was living with her son, an attorney in London.

The King granted her a pension of one shilling a day for life as an out-pensioner of Chelsea Hospital. She ventually went insane and died in Bethlehem Hospital, Bishopsgate, Middlesex in 1792, aged 69. She was buried in the grounds of Chelsea Hospital.

Death: She is believed to have gone insane and was accepted into the Bethlehem Hospital; she died in this lunatic asylum in Bedlam in 1792.  Five days before her death it was reported in a newspaper as quoted: "This veteran heroine, who distinguished herself very highly many years ago, by repeated acts of valour, and who served in the navy under the virile habit, is still alive; but it is with regret we inform our readers that she was last week admitted into Bethlehem Hospital, being at present a victim of the most deplorable infirmity that can afflict human nature."

She was buried among other old soldiers at Chelsea hospital, just as she would have wanted.

 

A poem in honour of Hannah Snell, as found in The Gentlemen's magazine of 1750.

'Hannah in breeks behav'd so well
That none her softer sex could tell;
Nor was her policy confounded,
When near the mark of nature wounded:
Which proves that men will scarce admit,
That woman are for secrets fit,
That healthful blood could keep so long,
Amidst young fellows hale and strong,
Demonstrates tho' a seeming wonder,
That love to courage truckles under.
O how her bed-mate bit his lips,
And mark'd the spreading of her hips;
And curs'd the blindness of his youth,
When she contess'd the naked truth!
Her fortitude, to no man's second,
To woman's honour must be reckon'd.
Twelve wounds! 'twas half great Ceasar's number
That made his corpse the ground encumber,
How many men, for heroes nurst
Had left their colours at the first?
'twas thought Achilles greatest glory,
That Homer rose to sing his story:
And Alexander mourned his lot,
that no such bard could then be got. -
But Hannah's praise no Homer needs;
She lives to sing her proper deeds.

There is probably so much more to be read about this woman, and things that I may have missed or omitted. But here, have atleast a glimpse into the life of a woman. Perhaps history had changed things, people added, took away. History after all is written by people and not by mind reading computers. :) I did try to see to it that information was checked in several sources at least before being added. And have read even an old 1750s Gentlemen's magazine amongst other things. Hope you have enjoyed it!