Part 43 (1/2)

JUST-a.s.s. A punning appellation for a justice.

IVY BUSH. Like an owl in an ivy bush; a simile for a meagre or weasel-faced man, with a large wig, or very bushy hair.

KATE. A picklock. 'Tis a rum kate; it is a clever picklock.

CANT.

KEEL BULLIES. Men employed to load and unload the coal vessels.

KEELHAULING. A punishment in use among the Dutch seamen, in which, for certain offences, the delinquent is drawn once, or oftener, under the s.h.i.+p's keel: ludicrously defined, undergoing a great hard-s.h.i.+p.

TO KEEP. To inhabit. Lord, where do you keep? i.e.

where are your rooms? ACADEMICAL PHRASE. Mother, your t.i.t won't keep; your daughter will not preserve her virginity.

TO KEEP IT UP. To prolong a debauch. We kept it up finely last night; metaphor drawn from the game of shuttle-c.o.c.k.

KEEPING CULLY. One who keeps a mistress, as he supposes, for his own use, but really for that of the public.

KEFFEL. A horse. WELSH.

KELTER. Condition, order. Out of kelter; out of order.

KELTER. Money.

KEMP'S MORRIS. William Kemp, said to have been the original Dogberry in Much ado about Nothing, danced a morris from London to Norwich in nine days: of which he printed the account, A. D. 1600, int.i.tled, Kemp's Nine Days Wonder, &c.

KEMP'S SHOES. Would I had Kemp's shoes to throw after you. BEN JONSON. Perhaps Kemp was a man remarkable for his good luck or fortune; throwing an old shoe, or shoes, after any one going on an important business, being by the vulgar deemed lucky.

KEN. A house. A bob ken, or a bowman ken; a well-furnished house, also a house that harbours thieves. Biting the ken; robbing the house. CANT.

KEN MILLER, or KEN CRACKER. A housebreaker. CANT.

KENT-STREET EJECTMENT. To take away the street door: a method practised by the landlords in Kent-street, Southwark, when their tenants are above a fortnight's rent in arrear.

KERRY SECURITY. Bond, pledge, oath, and keep the money.

KETCH. Jack Ketch; a general name for the finishers of the law, or hangmen, ever since the year 1682, when the office was filled by a famous pract.i.tioner of that name, of whom his wife said, that any bungler might put a man to death, but only her husband knew how to make a gentleman die sweetly. This officer is mentioned in Butler's Ghost, page 54, published about the year 1682, in the following lines:

Till Ketch observing he was chous'd, And in his profits much abus'd.

In open hall the tribute dunn'd, To do his office, or refund.

Mr. Ketch had not long been elevated to his office, for the name of his predecessor Dun occurs in the former part of this poem, page 29:

For you yourself to act squire Dun, Such ignominy ne'er saw the sun.

The addition of 'squire,' with which Mr. Dun is here dignified, is a mark that he had beheaded some state criminal for high treason; an operation which, according to custom for time out of mind, has always ent.i.tled the operator to that distinction. The predecessor of Dun was Gregory Brandon, from whom the gallows was called the Gregorian tree, by which name it is mentioned in the prologue to Mercurius Pragmaticus, tragi-comedy acted at Paris, &c.

1641:

This trembles under the black rod, and he Doth fear his fate from the Gregorian tree.