Lexicon Balatronicum | Page 6

of the barrel fever; he killed himself by
drinking.
BARROW MAN. A man under sentence of transportation; alluding to
the convicts at Woolwich, who are principally employed in wheeling
barrows full of brick or dirt.
BARTHOLOMEW BABY. A person dressed up in a tawdry manner,
like the dolls or babies sold at Bartholomew fair.
BASKET. An exclamation frequently made use of in cock-pits, at
cock-fightings, where persons refusing or unable to pay their losings,
are adjudged by that respectable assembly to be put into a basket
suspended over the pit, there to remain during that day's diversion: on
the least demur to pay a bet, Basket is vociferated in terrorem. He grins
like a basket of chips: a saying of one who is on the broad grin.
BASKET-MAKING. The good old trade of basket-making; copulation,
or making feet for children's stockings.
BASTARD. The child of an unmarried woman.
BASTARDLY GULLION. A bastard's bastard.
TO BASTE. To beat. I'll give him his bastings, I'll beat him heartily.
BASTING. A beating.
BASTONADING. Beating any one with a stick; from baton, a stick,
formerly spelt baston.
BAT. A low whore: so called from moving out like bats in the dusk of
the evening.
BATCH. We had a pretty batch of it last night; we had a hearty dose of

liquor. Batch originally means the whole quantity of bread baked at one
time in an oven.
BATTNER. An ox: beef being apt to batten or fatten those that eat it.
The cove has hushed the battner; i.e. has killed the ox.
BATCHELOR'S FARE. Bread and cheese and kisses.
BATCHELOR'S SON. A bastard.
BATTLE-ROYAL. A battle or bout at cudgels or fisty-cuffs, wherein
more than two persons are engaged: perhaps from its resemblance, in
that particular, to more serious engagements fought to settle royal
disputes.
BAWBEE. A halfpenny. Scotch.
BAWBELS, or BAWBLES. Trinkets; a man's testicles.
BAWD. A female procuress.
BAWDY BASKET. The twenty-third rank of canters, who carry pins,
tape, ballads, and obscene books to sell, but live mostly by stealing.
Cant.
BAWDY-HOUSE BOTTLE. A very small bottle; short measure being
among the many means used by the keepers of those houses, to gain
what they call an honest livelihood: indeed this is one of the least
reprehensible; the less they give a man of their infernal beverages for
his money, the kinder they behave to him.
BAY FEVER. A term of ridicule applied to convicts, who sham illness,
to avoid being sent to Botany Bay.
BAYARD OF TEN TOES. To ride bayard of ten toes, is to walk on
foot. Bayard was a horse famous in old romances,
BEAK. A justice of-peace, or magistrate. Also a judge or chairman
who presides in court. I clapp'd my peepers full of tears, and so the old
beak set me free; I began to weep, and the judge set me free.
BEAN. A guinea. Half bean; half a guinea.
BEAR. One who contracts to deliver a certain quantity of sum of stock
in the public funds, on a future day, and at stated price; or, in other
words, sells what he has not got, like the huntsman in the fable, who
sold the bear's skin before the bear was killed. As the bear sells the
stock he is not possessed of, so the bull purchases what he has not
money to pay for; but in case of any alteration in the price agreed on,
either party pays or receives the difference. Exchange Alley.
BEAR-GARDEN JAW or DISCOURSE. Rude, vulgar language, such

as was used at the bear-gardens.
BEAR LEADER. A travelling tutor.
BEARD SPLITTER. A man much given to wenching.
BEARINGS. I'll bring him to his bearings; I'll bring him to reason. Sea
term.
BEAST. To drink like a beast, i.e. only when thirsty.
BEAST WITH TWO BACKS. A man and woman in the act of
copulation. Shakespeare in Othello.
BEATER CASES. Boots. Cant.
BEAU-NASTY. A slovenly fop; one finely dressed, but dirty.
BEAU TRAP. A loose stone in a pavement, under which water lodges,
and on being trod upon, squirts it up, to the great damage of white
stockings; also a sharper neatly dressed, lying in wait for raw country
squires, or ignorant fops.
BECALMED. A piece of sea wit, sported in hot weather. I am
becalmed, the sail sticks to the mast; that is, my shirt sticks to my back.
His prad is becalmed; his horse knocked up.
BECK. A beadle. See HERMANBECK.
BED. Put to bed with a mattock, and tucked up with a spade; said of
one that is dead and buried. You will go up a ladder to bed, i.e. you will
be hanged. In many country places, persons hanged are made to mount
up a ladder, which is afterwards turned round or taken away, whence
the term, "Turned off."
BEDFORDSHIRE. I am