Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 4.pdf/382

 rather stout in person, as voluble in conversation as a stump-speaker, and possessed of an inordinate desire to become a 'stock-sharp.' She has a wonderful amount of gossip and 'dead-sure points' to communicate, and is by no means unwilling to reveal all she knows to any one who is supposed to have information relative to any stock, and in return can give her a point.

Mud-hole, subs. (whalers').—A salt-*water lagoon in which whales are captured.

Mud-honey, subs. (common).—Mud; street slush.

Mud-hook, subs. (nautical).—An anchor.

Mud-lark, subs. (common).—1. See quots.

1796. Colquhoun, Police of the Metropolis, p. 60. These aquatic plunderers practise another device, by connecting themselves with men and boys, known by the name of mud-larks, who prowl about, and watch under the ship when the tide will permit, and to whom they throw small parcels of sugar, coffee, and other articles of plunder, which are conveyed to the receivers by the mud-larks, who generally have a certain share of the booty.

1811. Lex. Bal., s.v.

1823. Bee, Dict. Turf, s.v. mud-larks—fellows who scratch about in gutters for horsenails, and other fragments of scrap-iron; also women who go into the Thames, at low-water, to pick from the mud bits of coal, which are spilled from the barges along-shore.

1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., ii. 173. There is another class who may be termed riverfinders, although their occupation is connected only with the shore; they are commonly known by the name of mud-larks, from being compelled, in order to obtain the articles they seek, to wade sometimes up to their middle through the mud left on the shore by the retiring tide. The mud-larks collect whatever they happen to find, such as coals, bits of old-iron, rope, bones, and copper nails that drop from ships while lying or repairing along shore.

1871. Daily News, 26 Dec. 'Workhouse Xmas. Depravity.' Why, there's Jemima Ann has  been bleeding me of a fiver to send to some Christmas Dinner Fund for juvenile mudlarks.

2. (old).—A duck.

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

3. (City).—Any one with out-*door duties.

4. (common).—A street-Arab (q.v.).

5. (old).—A hog.—Grose (1785).

Mud-major, subs. (military).—An infantry major: i.e., one who, on parade, commands a company on foot.

Mud-picker, subs. (military).—A garrison policeman.

Mud-player, subs. (cricketers').—A batsman partial to a soft wicket.

Mud-plunging, subs. (tramps').—Tramping through slush in search of sympathy.

1883. Daily Telegraph, 8 Feb., p. 3, col. 1. 'The bitterest sort of weather is their [cadgers'] weather, and it doesn't matter if it's house-to-house work or chanting, or mud-plunging, it's cold work.'

Mud-salad Market, subs. phr. (common).—Covent Garden.

1880. Punch, 14 Aug., p. 71. Mud-salad Market belongs to His Grace the Duke of Mudford. It was once a tranquil Convent Garden.

Mud-sill, subs. (American).—1. A low-born, ignorant, contemptible wretch.

2. (obsolete American).—A Southerner: circa 1861-4.