Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 2.pdf/185

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care who you are, tho' before you spoke I took you for a brewer because you travel with your cooler by your side.'

2. (American thieves').—A prison. For synonyms, see Cage.

3. (common).—Ale or stout after spirits and water. Sometimes called 'putting the beggar on the gentleman'; also damper (q.v.).

1890), p. 76. Many persons in order to allay the heat or thirst arising from the pernicious use of such quantities of ardent spirits, frequently take a glass of porter, which is termed a cooler, 'a damper,' etc.
 * 1) 1821. P. Egan, Tom and Jerry (ed.

Cool-Kick, subs. (Eton College). —When a behind (q.v.) or 'back' gets a kick with no one up to him.

Cool-Lady, subs, (old).—A female follower of the camp who sells brandy.—Grose [1785].

Cool-Nantz, subs, (old).—Brandy. For synonyms, see Drinks.

Cool one's Coppers, verbal phr. (popular).—To allay the morning's thirst after a night of drink. Cf., Hot-coppers and Dry as a LIME BASKET.

Oxford, ch. iii. We were playing Van John in Blake's rooms till three last night, and he gave us devilled bones and mulled port. A fellow can't enjoy his breakfast after that without something to cool his coppers.
 * 1) 1861. T. Hughes, Tom Brown at

1870. Sportsman, 17 Dec. 'A Chapel Meeting.' Bring me a mouthful, George, shouted a grasping Typo one day to his chum, who, at the trough in the furthest corner of the room, was cooling his coppers with cold water.

Coon, subs. (American).—1. A man. [Coon, a curtailment of 'racoon' (Procyon lotor), is thought to be of Indian origin (Algonquin, aroughcun, the scratcher), though some trace it to the French raton. The contraction dates from about 1840, when the racoon was used as a kind of political totem.]

'The Baby in the House.' I sign him, said the Curate Howe, O'er Samuel Burbott George Bethune, Then baby kicked up such a row As terrified that reverend coon.#
 * 1) 1860. Punch, vol. XXXIX., p. 227.

2. (American).—A nigger, e.g., a coons' bawdy house = a house where none are kept but girls of colour.

Gone coon, subs. phr. (American).—One in a serious or hopeless difficulty. A Scots equivalent is gone Corbie, i.e., a dead crow. Cf., Gone goose. [The explanation generally given is that during the American War a spy dressed in racoon skins ensconced himself in a tree. An English rifleman (the nationalities are reversible) levelled his piece at him, whereupon the American exclaimed: 'Don't shoot, I'll come down. I know I am a GONE COON.']

(quoted in De Vere). Besides the acquisition of Canada, which is put down on all sides as a gone coon.
 * 1) 1845. Mr. Giddings, in Congress

1857, Dickens, Lying Awake, in Reprinted Pieces, p. 192. I must think of something else as I lie awake; or, like that sagacious animal in the United States who recognised the colonel who was such a dead shot, I am a gone coon.

1864. Derby Day, p. 51. We shan't get to your advice till the crack's hocussed and done for, and we're all ruined as SAFE AS COONS.

1867. London Herald, 23 March, p. 221, col. 3. 'We're safe to nab him; safe as houses. He's a gone coon, sir.'

1883. Calverley, Fly Leaves, p. 83. 'On the Brink.' She stood so calm, so like a ghost, Betwixt me and that magic moon. That I already was almost A finished coon.