Perfect freedom of action

Lively St. Lemeston, the small Sussex market town at the heart of my next two (at least) books, is the first town I've written about. In for a Penny takes place on a country estate, and A Lily Among Thorns is set in London. But towns were becoming more and more important in England during the Regency as the balance of the economy shifted, with more jobs being created in industries and jobs in agriculture being lost. Of course there were the great factory towns (most of them in the North of England) like Manchester, and London itself increased greatly in size in the period, but even small towns saw growth and change.

One thing I learned was that "town" covered a huge range of sizes. ("City" had a pretty specific meaning in period: a town with a cathedral, that is, the center of a Church of England see, and didn't really denote anything in terms of size.) I imagine Lively St. Lemeston having a population of about 1500. But what I have to remember is that that sounds a lot smaller to me (my high school was bigger than that) than it would have to a Regency English person. Because there were many fewer urban areas and long-distance travel was fairly impractical for most people, even a town of that size could have a very well-developed social and political life, with its own Assembly Rooms, clubs, theatres, libraries, workhouses, jails, newspapers, &c. &c.

But one thing a lot of towns lacked was effective infrastructure. Most towns had very low taxation, in some cases only enough to pay for an annual feast for the town councilmen. The primary taxes were the poor rates, which paid for whatever form of welfare the town provided and which were administered through individual parishes (of which some towns had several, and some towns had too few to actually service the potential congregation, since the parish boundaries were usually hundreds of years old). There was no income tax, and even though a national one was briefly passed during the Napoleonic Wars to fund the army, it was immediately repealed when peace came. Any new expenses, such as streetlights or improving the roads, often had to be provided for in an Act of Parliament, and they could be difficult to get passed if the measure was controversial in the town.

One measure that was almost always contoversial in England at this period was an expanded police force. It's hard for me to wrap my head around how people in the eighteenth century thought about government. Growing up in the United States of the present day, I take it for granted that I pay taxes to the government and in return, they maintain the roads, provide public schools, have fire and police departments, run community centers, fund social programs like Medicaid, SSI, and welfare, and make laws that regulate my day-to-day life.

In eighteenth century England, that simply wasn't the case. Furthermore, crime was very different. Before mass production and the relative cheapness of consumer goods that industrialization brought about, all personal property was extremely valuable. It was possible to make a living only stealing handkerchiefs. (Sorry, I've mentioned that before, but it really blew my mind.) The most common form of crime was non-violent property theft. (Compare pickpocketing, relatively rare now, to mugging, relatively rare then.) In rural areas, where people knew their neighbors, anonymous crime was so difficult as to be almost non-existent. People just didn't see the need for any larger police force than the parish constable. And huge numbers of people financially benefitted from the constant organized theft, poaching, and smuggling going on all around them, so it was hard to muster public support for stopping it.

(I know I'm ignoring sexual assault and child abuse, probably a form of crime that was as endemic then as it is now. But it's hard to talk about that in this context because the laws and attitudes around it were so different that I'm not sure how much it would have entered people's minds when thinking about the advantages or disadvantages of policing.)

In 1822, a Parliamentary Select Committee on Policing the Metropolis concluded that, "It is difficult to reconcile an effective system of policing with that perfect freedom of action and exemption from interference, which are the great blessings and privileges of this country."

Perfect freedom of action and exemption from interference. Definitely not something most modern people expect.

Of course, it didn't help that the police forces that did exist were either ineffectual or corrupt or both. This was largely due to the extremely low pay of the officers (parish constables were not paid at all), who were generally obliged to personally pay the costs of prosecuting any criminal they brought charges against, and received a monetary reward on a successful conviction. This led to a situation where the police forces were as notoriously corrupt as the Gotham Police Department.  Whether the average citizen knew it, I can't say, but criminals certainly did. Bribery was common, streetwalkers paid night watchmen for protection, police swore under oath to Parliamentary Committees that "flash houses" (basically headquarters for London criminal activity, sort of combination brothel/fence/boarding house/gaming dens/you name it)  did not exist even though it was public knowledge that they did.

You can see something of the public attitude toward night watchmen in this Cruikshank illustration for Life in London, entitled "Tom Getting the best of a Charley." ("Charley" was a nickname for the night watchman.)

Image copyright The Museum of London. (Of course, rich young men being rude to cops continues to be a popular subject for fiction, but they don't get away with it much anymore. I still fondly remember that time on Smallville that Lex Luthor had to attend anger management seminars after smashing up a traffic cop's car with the golf clubs he was planning to donate to a charity auction. And didn't Logan Echolls do something similar on Veronica Mars?)

Here is another entry from James Hardy Vaux's Dictionary:

WEIGH FORTY: term used by the police, who are as well versed in flash as the thieves themselves. It is often customary for the traps, to wink at depredations of a petty nature, and for which no reward would attach, and to let a thief reign unmolested till he commits a capital crime. They then grab him, and, on conviction, share (in many cases) a reward of 40l., or upwards; therefore these gentry will say, Let him alone at present, we don't want him till he weighs his weight, meaning, of course, forty pounds.

And don't even get me started on some of the really shocking cases of entrapment I've read about--that's another whole post!

But crime got worse and worse, and public opinion was turning against capital punishment, the traditional deterrent of crime (partly, of course, because it was fairly ineffective as a deterrent, and made juries reluctant to convict anyway). Clearly something had to be done, and many towns did pass Policing Acts. One alternative that great numbers of towns tried were prosecution associations, which raised money through member subscriptions to pay for the prosecution of criminals.

A Policing Act is one of the biggest local political issues in Lively St. Lemeston, and most of my characters have an opinion of one kind or another (my Sweet Disorder heroine's mother will bore you for hours with hers). But for now, they just have a constable and a paid night watchman. This makes it an interesting place for the hero of my next book, Crimson Joy, since he's a con artist with a London background...

I'll probably be posting more about this, but in the meantime, a few links to further reading if you're interested:

"The Origins of Policing and Law Enforcement in England," by Stevie Woods at The Macaronis historical romance blog.

"Night Watchmen Through the Ages (with a little help from Richard Armitage)," by Cheryl Leigh at Historical Hearts.

An extended quote from Government and Community in the English Provinces, 1700-1870 by David Eastwood at my tumblr; it was too long to include here but it has some great insights into the whole context of how people were thinking about crime, private property, and public spaces in this period and how that was shifting.

A couple of other great sources on the topic are The English Town, 1680-1840: Government, Society and Culture by Rosemary Sweet and The Regency Underworld by Donald A. Low (although that one mostly deals with London).

Oliver is in town

This is part two of my favorite entries in James Hardy Vaux's 1812 Dictionary of the Flash Language. Part one is here.

(I'm rereading the dictionary, and reading Vaux's memoirs, because my next book has changed direction. After a conversation with my agent at the RWA conference about the marketability of ghosts at the moment, I've temporarily shelved The Ghost and Miss Moore and have started another book about a con man and the daughter of the Tory patron of my little market town from Sweet Disorder. Its working title is Crimson Joy and so far I'm still in that new-book first-flush-of-love stage with it!)

LETTER Q: the mace, or billiard-slum, is sometimes called going upon the Q, or the letter Q, alluding to an instrument used in playing billiards. [BILLIARD SLUM: The mace is sometimes called giving it to 'em on the billiard slum. See MACE.

MACE: to mace a shopkeeper, or give it to him upon the mace, is to obtain goods on credit, which you never mean to pay for; to run up a score with the same intention, or spunge upon your acquaintance, by continually begging or borrowing from them, is termed maceing, or striking the mace.]

LETTER-RACKET: going about to respectable houses with a letter or statement, detailing some case of extreme distress, as ship-wreck, sufferings by fire, &c.; by which benevolent, but credulous, persons, are induced to relieve the fictitious wants of the imposters, who are generally men, or women, of genteel address, and unfold a plausible tale of affliction. [I think my hero and his brother have done this one a fair number of times in their careers.]

LUSH: to drink; speaking of a person who is drunk, they say, Alderman Lushington is concerned, or, he has been voting for the Alderman.

[Some scholars believe that this term derived from an actors' fraternal organization, "The City of Lushington." According to the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (as quoted here), "Near Drury Lane Theatre in London was the Harp Tavern, where a club of hard drinkers called The City of Lushington had been founded in 1750. Lushington's had a chairman, the 'Lord Mayor,' and four 'aldermen,' who presided over the wards [a type of urban administrative district] of Poverty, Lunacy, Suicide, and Jupiter (the supreme Roman god who presided over all human affairs).[...]'Lush,' at least as a generic term for beer or drink, first appeared in about 1790, long after The City of Lushington's formation, and it could very well be a contraction of the club's name."

By the way, when the club stopped allowing stage hands and other crew members to attend meetings as guests, it spun off a theatre technicians' organization called the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes which has lasted as a fraternal organization to the present day (although it is no longer affiliated with the theatre).]

MONKERY: the country parts of England are called The Monkery.

NUT: to please a person by any little act of assiduity, by a present, or by flattering words, is called nutting him; as the present, &c., by which you have gratified them, is termed a nut.

NUTS UPON IT: to be very much pleased or gratified with any object, adventure, or overture; so a person who conceives a strong inclination for another of the opposite sex, is said to be quite nutty, or nuts upon him or her. [Wow, is that where that comes from?]

OLIVER: the moon.

OLIVER IS IN TOWN: a phrase signifying that the nights are moonlight, and consequently unfavorable to depredation.

PEAR-MAKING: inlisting [sic] in various regiments, taking the bounty, and then deserting.

PIGS, or GRUNTERS: police runners. [Wow, some things never change.]

RINGING CASTORS: signifies frequenting churches and other public assemblies, for the purpose of changing hats, by taking away a good, and leaving a shabby one in its place; a petty game now seldom practised.

SPANK: to spank a glaze, is to break a pane of glass in a shop window, and make a sudden snatch at some article of value within your reach, having previously tied the shop-door with a strong cord on the outside, so as to prevent the shopman from getting out, till you have had full time to escape with your booty; to spank a place, is to rob it upon the spank; a spank is a robbery effected by the above means.

STAR: The star is a game chiefly practised by young boys, often under ten years of age, although the offense is capital. It consists of cutting a pane in a shop-window, by a peculiar operation calling starring the glaze, which is performed very effectually by a commen penknife; the depredators then take out such articles of value as lie within reach of their arm, which if they are not interrupted, sometimes includes have the contents of the window. A person convicted of this offense is said to have been done for a star.

TURN UP: to desist from, or relinquish, any particular habit or mode of life, or the further pursuit of any object you had in view, is called turning it up. To turn up a mistress, or a male acquaintance, is to drop all intercourse, or correspondence, with them. To turn up a particular house, or shop, you have been accustomed to use, or deal at, signifies to withdraw your patronage, or custom, and visit it no more. To quit a person suddenly in the street, whether secretly or openly, is called turning him up. To turn a man up sweet, is to get rid of him effectually, but yet to leave him in perfect good humour, and free from any suspicion or discontent; this piece of finesse often affords a field for the exercise of consummate address, as in the case of turning up a flat, after having stripped him of all his money at play, or a shopkeeper, whom you have just robbed before his face of something valuable, upon the pinch, or the hoist.

TURNIPS: to give any body turnips signifies to turn him or her up, and the party so turned up, is said to have knap'd turnips.


While writing this post, I discovered that almost all of these entries appeared word-for-word in Pierce Egan's 1823 expanded edition of Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (subtitle: "Revised and Corrected with the Addition of Numerous Slang Phrases Collected from Tried Authorities")! I don't know enough about nineteenth-century copyright law to know whether that would be considered plagiarism. (I guess it's possible that he paid Vaux's publisher for the rights...does anyone know?) If it was, I can't decide whether James Hardy Vaux would be annoyed and want his share of the cash, or appreciate Egan's sharp practice.

One of the things I consistently try to remember while writing is how valuable every piece of personal property was before consumer goods became mass-produced and semi-disposable. I remember researching a few years ago what a Regency house would have in its rooms in place of a trashcan and realizing they wouldn't have had anything because nothing was thrown away. Absolutely nothing. It's hard for me to imagine a world where handkerchiefs cost enough that you could make a good living just from stealing those, but it must have really informed how people thought about their surroundings, and it definitely informed how professional crime and the underworld functioned.

And with that I must leave you! Here, have some of these:

Getting your money at the best

While researching A Lily Among Thorns, I came across James Hardy Vaux's Dictionary of the Flash Language (included as an appendix in his Memoirs) (the first autobiography AND the first dictionary written in Australia!). It's a great resource for criminal vocabulary because Vaux is a dedicated author--he includes really detailed usage notes. The footnote on the original dedication of the book (dated 1812, although it looks like the book wasn't published until 1819):

"The Author (a prisoner under sentence of transportation for life) having, by an alleged act of impropriety, incurred the Governor's displeasure, was at this period banished to Newcastle, a place of punishment for offenders: these sheets were there compiled during his solitary hours of cessation from hard labour; and the Commandant was accordingly presented by the Author with the first copy of his production."

This is a two-part post because there are too many great entries I want to share with you, but here's part one:

ARM-PITS: To work under the arm-pits, is to practise only such kinds of depradation, as will amount, upon conviction, to what the law terms single, or petty larceny; the extent of punishment for which is transportation for seven years. By following this system, a thief avoids the halter, which certainly is applied above the arm-pits.

BEST: to get your money at the best, signifies to live by dishonest or fraudulent practices, without labour or industry, according to the general acceptation of the latter word; but, certainly, no persons have more occasion to be industrious, and in a state of perpetual action than cross-coves [criminals, as opposed to square-coves, honest men]; and experience has proved, when too late, to many of them, that honesty is the best policy; and consequently, that the above phrase is by no means à-propos.

BOUNCE: to bully, threaten, talk loud, or affect great consequence; to bounce  a person out of any thing, is to use threatening or high words, in order to intimidate him, and attain the object you are intent upon; or to obtain goods of a tradesman, by assuming the appearance of great respectability and importance, so as to remove any suspicious he might at first entertain. A thief, detected in the commission of a robbery, has been known by this sort of finesse, aided by a genteel appearance and polite manners, to persuade his accusers of his innocence, and not only to get off with a good grace, but induce them to apologize for their supposed mistake, and the affront put upon him. This masterstroke of effrontery is called giving it to 'em upon the bounce.

CAT and KITTEN RIG: the petty game of stealing pewter quart and pint pots from public-houses.

CHRISTEN: obliterating the name and number on the movement of a stolen watch; or the crest, cipher, &c., on articles of plate, and getting others engraved, so as to prevent their being identified, is termed having them bishop'd or christen'd.

COME TO THE HEATH: a phrase signifying to pay or give money, and synonymous with Tipping, from which word it takes its rise, there being a place called Tiptree Heath, I believe, in the County of Essex.

CRAB: to prevent the perfection or execution of any intended matter or business, by saying any thing offensive or unpleasant, is called crabbing it, or throwing a crab; to crab a person, is to use such offensive language or behaviour as will highly displease, or put him in an ill humour.

DINGABLE: any thing considered worthless, or which you can well spare, having no further occasion for it, is declared to be dingable. This phrase is often applied by sharps to a flat whom they have cleaned out; and by abandoned women to a keeper, who having spent his all upon them, must be discarded, or ding'd as soon as possible.

DRUMMOND: any scheme or project considered to be infallible, or any event which is deemed inevitably certain, is declared to be a a Drummond; meaning, it is as sure as the credit of that respectable banking-house, Drummond and Co.

FLESH-BAG: a shirt.

(Let's just look at that one again:

FLESH-BAG: a shirt.

Beautiful.)

FLAT: [I'm really happy about this one because I was so upset that "mark," meaning the target of a con man, is out of period, but then I realized "flat" can be used almost exactly the same way!] In a general sense, any honest man, or square cove, in opposition to a sharp or cross-cove; when used particularly, it means the person whom you have a design to rob or defraud, who is termed the flat, or the flatty-gory. A man who does any foolish or imprudent act, is called a flat; any person who is found an easy dupe to the designs of the family, is said to be a prime flat. It's a good flat that's never down, is a proverb among flash people; meaning, that though a man may be repeatedly duped or taken in, he must in the end have his eyes opened to his folly.

GO-ALONGER: a simple easy person, who suffers himself to be made a tool of, and is readily persuaded to any act or undertaking by his associates, who inwardly laugh at his folly, and ridicule him behind his back.

GO OUT: to follow the profession of thieving; two or more persons who usually rob in company, are said to go out together.

KIDDY: a thief of the lower order, who, when he is breeched [in funds], by a course of successful depradation, dresses in the extreme of vulgar gentility, and affects a knowingness in his air and conversation, which renders him in reality an object of ridicule; such a one is pronounced by his associates of the same class, a flash-kiddy or a rolling-kiddy. My kiddy is a familiar term used by these gentry in addressing each other.

KID-RIG: meeting a child in the streets who is going on some errand, and by a false, but well fabricated story, obtaining any parcel or goods it may be carrying; this game is practised by two persons, who have each their respective parts to play, and even porters and other grown persons are sometimes defrauded of their load by this artifice. To kid a person out of any thing, is to obtain from him by means of a false pretence, as that you were sent by a third person, &c.; such impositions are all generally termed the kid-rig.

KNAPPING A JACOB FROM A DANNA-DRAG. This is a curious species of robbery, or rather borrowing without leave, for the purpose of robbery; it signifies taking away the short ladder from a nightman's cart, while the men are gone into a house, the privy of which they employed emptying, in order to effect an ascent to a one-pair-of-stairs window, to scale a garden-wall, &c., after which the ladder, of course, is left to rejoin its master as it can.

Do you have a favorite bit of old slang? A favorite language reference book?