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 1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Hunting the Squirrel, an amusement practised by post boys, and stage coachmen, which consists in following a one-horse chaise, and driving it before them, passing close to it so as to brush the wheel, and by other means terrifying any woman, or person that may be in it. A man whose turn comes for him to drink, before he has emptied his former glass, is said to be hunted.

In, or out of, the hunt, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Having a chance, or none; in or out of the swim (q.v.). Admitted to, or outside, a circle or society.

Hunt-about, subs. (colloquial).—1. A prying gossip.

2. (common).—A walking whore.

Hunt-counter, subs. (old).—A beggar.

1623. Shakspeare, 2 Henry IV., i., 2. You hunt-counter, hence! Avaunt!

Hunters. Pitching the hunters, verb. phr. (costermongers'). See quot.

1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, i., 390. Pitching the hunters is the three sticks a penny, with the snuff-boxes stuck upon sticks; if you throw your stick, and they fall out of the hole, you are entitled to what you knock off.

1876. Hindley, Cheap Jack, p. 235. When there was no cattle jobbing to be done, he would pitch the hunters, that is, put up the 'three sticks a penny' business.

Hurly-Burly, subs. (old: now colloquial).—A commotion; a bustle; an uproar.

c. 1509-1547. Lusty Juventus (Dodsley, [Old Plays, 4th ed., 1874, ii., 85]. What a hurly-burly is here! Smick smack, and all this gear!

1539. Tavernier, Garden of Wysdom, E. ii. verso. Thys kynge [Gelo] on a tyme exacted money of hys comons, whome when he perceuyed in a hurly burly for the same, and ready to make an insurrection, he thus sodaynly appeased.

1542. Udall, Apophthegms of Erasmus [1877], p. 115. The meaning of the Philosophier was, that princes for the ambition of honour, rule and dominion, being in continuall strife, and hurlee burlee, are in very deede persons full of miserie and wo.

1551. More, Utopia, (Pitt Press ed., 1884, i., 52, 5). Whereby so many nations for his sake should be broughte into a troublesome hurlei-burley.

1567. Fenton, Tragical Dicsourses, f. 104. They heard a great noyse and hurleyburley in the street of the Guard and chief officers of the Watch.

1592. Nashe, Pierce Penilesse (Grosart, Works, ii., 53). Not trouble our peaceable Paradise with their private hurlie-burlies about strumpets.

1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe (Grosart, Works, v., 293). Put them in feare where no feare is, and make a hurlie-burlie in the realm.

1606. Shakspeare, Macbeth, i., 1. When the hurley-burley's done, When the battle's lost and won.

1619. T. North's Diall of Princes (1557), corrected, p. 703, c. 1. Two or three dayes before you shall see such resort of persons, such hurly burly, such flying this way such sending that way, some occupyed in telling the cookes how many sorts of meates they will have

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v.

1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.

1771. Smollett, Humphrey Clinker (ed. 1890, p. 185). As for the lawyer he waited below till the hurly-burly was over, and then he stole softly to his own chamber.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1811. J. and H. Smith, Horace in London, pp. 18-25, Ode ii., 'Hurly-burly' (Title).

1886. Max Adeler Out of the HURLY-BURLY. Title.