Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/200

 "";v-vv--1 -V-~f -~-<~ f-__ 162 NOTES AND QUERIES. los s.v1.sm. 1,19oo. assailed both in and out of Parliament. Nothing need be said of “white tape,” pro- bably a mere term of subterfuge. The Act of 1736 gave occasion for the in- vention of many nicknames. An epigram in the G’entleman’s Magazine for that ear (p. 677) shows the view ta en by the public of this legislation :- Tho’ Gin is hardly kept alive, And many think will not revive, Yet why, say: Nan, mayn’t she recover? The doctors ave not given her over. Answer. Of Gin there 's hopes but very small, In such bad hands she ’s chanced to fall ; For as a proverb it is sure, The doctors kill more than they cure. And when the time apgroached for the law to takeelfect the ginshop- eepers made “a parade of mock ceremonies for Madam Geneva’s lying in state,” and put their house signs in mourning (G'entleman’s Magazine, September, 1736, p. 550). But the vitality of gin was proof against this attempt at State repression. he Act was evaded from the outset. “ Only Mr. Ashley of the London Punch-House, and one more, had took out 501. Licenses. Mr. Gordon, a Punch-seller in the Strand, had devised a new Punch made of strong Madeira Wine and called Sangre [Sangaree]” (ibid.). The number of convictions for breaches of the Act, the nalty being 100l., was enormous* The Lomxz Magazine for 1736 (p. 579) informs us :- “The Distillers and others in several Parts of the Town sell a Liquor which seems to be a Wine, with Spices infus’d therein. And several continuing to retail Spirituous Liquors contrary to the Act, Informations were given a inst them to the Com- missioners of Excise. The giallowin Drams are sold at several Brand Shops in High Holborn, St. Giles’s, Tothill-Street ltosemary- Lane, Shore-ditch, the Mint, Kent-Street, &c., viz. Sangree Tow-Row, Cuckold’s Comfort Parliament Gin, Bob *I* Make shift, the List shift, the Ladies Delight; the Bin., King Theodore of Corsica, Cholick and Gripe Waters,§ &c., to evade the late Act.” Of this batch of names touches of wit are evinced only in five, namely, Cuckold’s Com- fort, Make Shift, the Last Shift, the Ladies Delight, and the Balk ; another is curious for at the end of a year and nine months from the date of the Act (Gent. Mag., 1738, p. 379). 'I' Hark ! the fierce soldier from within Exclaiming wild-ge Gods ! no Gin? Wear I this hilt, t is useless knob, Yet see thy fall, puissant Bob? ‘ Address to Gene'a,’ Gent. Mag., 1737, p. 632. I Gin is still the favourite drink of women. Cf. a Latin elegiac poem in Gent. Mag., 1736, p. 420. § Gin to pain’d entrails gives relief. ‘ Address to Geneva,’ u..s. the witness it bears to popular interest in Corsican affairs; but all perhaps were more shortlived than the statute which gave rise to them, and which, failing of its purpose, as Walpole had predicted it would do, was re- pealed in 1743 and replaced b an Act of a milder kind. The forelgoigg list, however, bein incomplete, I wou d d that another won? for gin is given as Southsea Mountain in a glossary of cant words appended to the ‘ Life of Bamgfylde-Moore Carew ’ (1382). The absurdityoft is term may perhaps lessened by reading “South Sea ’ or Soutltsea, as in Bailey’s ‘ ict. of Cant Words,’ which notices yet other names for gin viz. “diddle,” iiiiudiiig pi-obiibhv like “the balk” to the evasion or “di dling” of the law, and “ bingo ” which the author of ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’ (see the ‘ H.E.D.’) uses for brandy, and w ich is perhaps connected with “binger,” Lincolnshire for “tipsy” (Halli- well). Dr. Murray suggests a very fanciful etymology. Nicknames for gin in more recent days are Elentiful enough. This spirit seems never to ave freed itself from the ill repute it had acquired, and from my earliest years I remember that people were loth to utter the name.* This was a reason for employing nicknames, the invention of which, moreover, was stimulated bg the Christmas antomimes. There is an old itty, entitled ‘ Hot Codlins,’ which the clown used to sing, and occasion- ally does so now. The song is about an old woman who sold hot codlins, but, feeling cold and wanting something to warm her, thought it no sin To go and fetch herself a quartern of - Here the clown pauses, leaving his audience to supply the ‘ missing wo ”-not that required by the rime, but the oddest term they can devise (such, for instance, as “ tur- pentine tea” or “broth ”), the successive guesses eliciting more or less laughter, and the clown giving his own phrase in the end. Cetera quis nesczt ? The song is doubtless one of the “pleasant reminiscences of your readers' juven' itly. I conc ude this rambling note by naming as many as 1 can remember of the various terms or gin current in ‘popular speech. These are, besides “max,” “b ue ruin,” ‘ white satin ” or simply “ satin ” (formerly “ white Jack Randall then impatient rose, And said °‘ Tom’s s ech were just as fine If he would call that gist of By that genteeler name-wma wine. ” Quoted in the ‘ Slang Dictionary,’s.v. ‘ White Wine!
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 * l2,0(X) in all within the bills of mortality only
 * Cf. ‘ Randall’s Diary,’ 1820:-