WHITECHAPEL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 112, 11 May 1912, Page 9

WHITECHAPEL

THE THIEVES' QUARTERS SLANG, SIMILES, AND PHRASEOLOGY. ,(By A. J. Heiglrway.) Whitechagel has ,for long years had the reputation of being pre-eminently tho "thieves' quarter" of London, and, to put the matter mildly, there is still to be found there a decided ."nest" of people whose honesty is not above suspicion, The pickpocket, the hooligan, the purse-snatcher. still flourish there to. gether with their invaluable ally, "the fence." But, in common justice it is due to the place to say at once that tho evidence of late years is in the direction of establishing the coming of a great change. And the principal factor in the production of that change has been the advent of the foreign Jew. To-day Whitechapel is the centre of a great district in which the predominant elements are the German Jew and the Polish Jew. These people, forced from their own shores by political oppression, or attracted by the .better conditions of England, bring with- them the desire to earn an honest and adequate livelihood. That they are keen buyers and sellers is undoubted. They may even at times undertake transactions on the margin of the tolerance of the law. They may even in troduce certain foreign customs and vices and establish gambling and drinking dens. They may do all that; but that is not open and violent contravention of the law ; that is not hooliganism of the degraded English type. On the whole, the coming of the Jew in his mass has improved Whitechapel. Not- that it is> yet good — far 'from that ; but "honour where honour is due," and in perfect fairness it must be confessed the place is better than it was. Round Mile End-road and Commercial-road are now established a big tailorings business and a big cabinetmaking industry, for a peculiar genius in this latter art is possessed by the Pole in particular. ■ As a consequence there is now to be seen off Aldgato a splendid Jewish synagogue with a magnificent interior, and in many a small and dark street you will see above the door those Yiddish symbols which, it is explained to you, mean that one room of that house is devoted to the purpose of a small synagogue for the neighbours. And, just recently, there has been opened the Yiddish Theatre, where will be presented the tpecial 3rama and opera of this people. Jews, above all. are law-abiding, and desire peacefully to prosecute their business. In that fact lies the explanation of the change that has come over Whitechapel, the gate of the Eaefc. But, that much said, attention may be drawn to the life of those thieves who still remain. These comprise generally degenerate Cockney. I received confirmation of this in a peculiar place— Pentonville Prison. Of the 1000 prisoners there, scarce 20 are J&v^, and their offence that of smuggling saccharine (on which is a heavy duty), and no worse. The real London thief ia a Cockney born and bredt In Shoremtch ajid in Whitechapel he still exists, individually and in gangs, although it should be romembeivd that worse quarters may now bo found in the north, south, and even west of the metropolis. •THE LIFE OF THE THIEF. " Every "life" or profession nas a [ humble beginning, and it is no difficult thing to discover the genesis of some aspects of East End crime. One of the_ impressions that a stroll through the East End any night will leave" upon your mind is the great number of small shops where sweete, hot drinks, ice cream, chip 'potatoes, and a ha'penn'ortl\ of "mash" are sold. Following the lead of the bara of public-houses, these places are jauntily fitted 'out and brilliantly lit. In each one of them you will find at any time a gang of youths from 9 to 15 years of age, epending their coppers in "swanky drinks and ripe for any mischief from the sheer ennui of idleness. There is the tendency for any euch place to become a nursery of crime. The soil is all ready : where ie the seed ? One night an errand or van boy enters and "splashes" rather more than usual. After enjoying for a time the worshipful admiration ,of his f ellow», he tells them "how he got it." He may have "pinched" a parcel from the van ; he may have used bird-lime on a till : he may have Tushed off with something from a. shop. He has escaped ,without harm, and here, as his pals can *»cc, is his reward. The implication "Go thou and do likewise" falls upon f ruitf ul - soil. That is the start. A gang springs up ready and ripe for any raid and any adventure. Every policeman and missioner of this quarter will tell you that such a gang of young fellows, with ages ranging round the twenties, will scarcely think twice about simply holding up one or two men in a side street and running through the pockets while the victim is utterly powerless. to protest. I know men to whom that has been done. The members, of such a gang sooner or later advance to individual enterprise. A few tools are secured, a "pal"' already in the game acts as guide, philosopher, and friend, and a house is "cracked." • Then cornea in the burglar's'"fence," and here certainly is where the Jew exhibits himself in one of his bad aspects. Behind many of these old clothes shops of Whitechapel' are little dark rooms ejitered from a courtway or by means of a back door. To secure admission ths burglar must rap in a set and mysterious fashion on the shuttered door. The "fence," of course, hap the whip hand in the negotiations, and generally defies the law for years and years, 'although , the temptation to ' a desperate burglar to "give him away" must at times be great. A HIDDEN LANGUAGE. One cannot have anything to do with tho East End before soon becoming aware of the existence of an extensive "slang" language in current use. To become in any way familiar with it involves much' explanation, and demands no little judicious tipping in lodging house and in shelter. But the reward is often ample. The dialect is most curious and expressive, and the linguistic dodges of disguising communi- ■ cation quite amazingly clever. The slang is a combination of rhyme and "back-slang." In the rhyming disguise any word that rhymes will be used in the room of the word intended. The knowledge of the possible context will therefore enable the listener to inter* pret. An expert quoted to me this classical example: — "Come, cows and kisses, put the battle of Nile on your Barnet fair and a rogue and a villain in your sky rocket. Call a flounder and dab with a tidy Charing Cross, and we'll go for a Bushy Park along the frog and toad into the I've eels. If that weird jargon were addressed to a colonial girl she would probably prepare for an emergency handling of a lunatic. But a coster girl, similarly addressed, would most likely respond : I "Right 0, honey," for she would understand it in this wise : "Come, missus, put a tile on your hair and a shilling m your pocket; call a cab with a tidy horse, and we'll go for a lark along the road into the fields." | " Backslang " is a method of disguising communications by pronouncing the words as if spelt backwards. Formerly it was very prominent, particularly amongst the costers. It is still in coni eiderable vogue, a.nd the venqiu'rei' will [at times hear com? 5995. « xam fi!«s— =

though the chances are a hundred to one against his over understanding them. A couple; which were interpreted for my benefit were: "Hi, yob, kool that enif elrig with the nael ekom. Sap her a top of reeb and a tib of occobat, and "Islema, ogda the opperca." After the reader has sufficiently puzzled over these hieroglyphics he or she may be glad to learn that the quotations respectively mean: "Hi, boy. look at that fine girl with the lean moke. Pass her a pot of beer and a, bit of tobacco," and "Misle, dog the copper 1 " THIEVES' SLANG. The real thieves' vocabulary is a most extensive and amusing one. The collection that I have secured from various sources and by various enquiries ,ia a« follows: A scarf-pin in a "prop"; a gold watch a "red kettle" or a, "red lever " ; a ring is a " grawney " ; a neck-chain is a " sling "j a handbag is a "Peter"; an umbrella a "mush ; a knife a " chiv " ; a coat i» a " smother " ; silk handkerchiefs "stooks"; hands are "cubes"; money is "zinc"; a pickpocket is a "fingersmith " ; the treadmill was the " wheel of life " ; a purse ia a " poke " or a " haddock " ; diamonds are "sparks"; a muff is a "skin"; bronze is designated "clods"; picking pockets on 'buses, "coming down the tail"; picking pockets on crowded trains, "working the rattler"; detectives, " D's " or " bent men " ; policemen, "flats"; a £5 note ia a "fin"; a sovereign a "nicker"; houeebreaking, "screwing"; put your hand in his pocket, "go at his reefer"; to "cover the block ' is to impede pursuit of a pickpocket; a "saucepan " .is the designation of a woman who supports a , " bully." How the, slang sounds in current talk may be judged by this confession of a gaol-bird : "I was jogging down a blooming slum in the, Chapel when I1I 1 butted a roeler who was sporting a 'red slang. 1 broke off his jerry and boned the clock, which was a red one, but I ww spotted, by a copper, who claimed me. J was» lugged before the beak, who gave me cix doss. Tbo weok after I was chucked up I did a snatch near St. Paul's, was collared, lagged, and got a bit of seven stretch." It is scarcely worth while translating the whole of the foregoing — it is merely a description of how a drunken man was robbed down Whitechapel way. '" Butted a' reeler" means "ran up against a drunken man"'; a "red slang" is a gold watch guard; "did a snatch" means "attempted to steal"; "seven stretch" means "seven years' penal servitude." Three months' imprisonment is indicated by " does a tray" or "thirteen clean shirts "'—on© a week. Hanging is described as "dying in a horse's nightcap" — i.e., a halter. Many of the words in the foregoing list were given me by old hands in shelters and lodginghouses only after much dredging of memory and persuasion. The newer generation, one or two of the more intelligent said, did not use slang quit© <so much as had "been the case. This on investigation proved to be very plausible.. London, so far as that is possible, is merging more and more into one. The distinctions between quarter and quarter tend to diminish with, the co-ordinating effects of rapid transport, by 'bus and tube. Similarly differences of speech between locality and locality incline to become more and more insignificant. Moreover, the chief has \ the ever-present appeal to become as much like other people as he can. Only bo can ho mix with them on equal terms and ply hie "profession" with success. The argument of conformity of type applies as much to speech as to dress, and so the tendency is for the slang of the thief io^bo. used only amongst themselves, and: even ' then not when others may chance to overhear. At i the same time that is a tendency which has become manifest only, but is by no means complete, Whitechapel and its thieves' quarter s>till have their slang, their virile similes and terse phraseology. But , whether the price of disguising yourself with dirt and grime and old clothes and of enduring hot air and, the stifling smell of ill- washed humanity is worth the experience you yourself must be the judg«. Some of the characters I met thereby were certainly worth the price— to ,a journalist. But that it is a price I would be the last to deny. Exactly how vilely a Whitechapel den may wnell you never will know till you've been there.