Carting. The punishment formerly inflicted
on bawds,
who were placed in a tumbrel or cart,
and led through
a town, that their persons might be known.
CARVEL’S ring. The private parts of
a woman. Ham
Carvel, a jealous old doctor, being in
bed with his wife,
dreamed that the Devil gave him a ring,
which, so long as
he had it on his finger, would prevent
his being made a
cuckold: waking he found he had got
his finger the Lord
knows where. See Rabelais, and Prior’s
versification of
the story.
To Cascade. To vomit.
Case. A house; perhaps from the Italian
Casa. In the canting
lingo it meant store or ware house, as
well as a dwelling
house. Tout that case; mark or observe
that house.
It is all bob, now let’s dub the
gig of the case; now the
coast is clear, let us break open the
door of the house.
Case VROW. A prostitute attached to a particular
bawdy
house.
Cash, or caffan. Cheese; cant. See caffan.
Caster. A cloak. Cant.
Castor. A hat. To prig a castor; to steal a hat.
Casting up one’s accounts. Vomiting.
Cat. A common prostitute. An old cat; a cross old woman.
Cat-heads. A Woman’s breasts. Sea phrase.
To cat, or shoot the cat. To vomit from drunkenness.
Cat and BAGPIPEAN society. A society
which met at
their office in the great western road:
in their summons,
published in the daily papers, it was
added, that the kittens
might come with the old cats without being
scratched.
Cat call. A kind of whistle, chiefly
used at theatres, to
interrupt the actors, and damn a new piece.
It derives
its name from one of its sounds, which
greatly resembles
the modulation of an intriguing boar cat.
Cat harping fashion. Drinking
cross-ways, and not, as
usual, over the left thumb. Sea
term.
Cat in pan. To turn cat in pan,
to change sides or
parties; supposed originally to have been
to turn Cate or cake
in pan.
Cat’s foot. To live under the
cat’s foot; to be under the
dominion of a wife hen-pecked. To
live like dog and cat;
spoken of married persons who live unhappily
together.
As many lives as a cat; cats, according
to vulgar
naturalists, have nine lives, that is
one less than a woman.
No more chance than a cat in hell without
claws; said of
one who enters into a dispute or quarrel
with one greatly
above his match.
Cat lap. Tea, called also scandal broth.
See scandal
broth.


