HEAVERS. Thieves who make it their business to steal tradesmen's shop-books. CANT. HECTOR. bully, a swaggering coward. To hector; to bully, probably from such persons affecting the valour of Hector, the Trojan hero. HEDGE. To make a hedge; to secure a bet, or wager, laid on one side, by taking the odds on the other, so that, let what will happen, a certain gain is secured, or hedged in, by the person who takes this precaution; who is then said to be on velvet. HEDGE ALEHOUSE. A small obscure alehouse. HEDGE CREEPER. A robber of hedges. HEDGE PRIEST. An illiterate unbeneficed curate, a patrico. HEDGE WHORE. An itinerant harlot, who bilks the bagnios and bawdy-houses, by disposing of her favours on the wayside, under a hedge; a low beggarly prostitute. HEELS. To he laid by the heels; to be confined, or put in prison. Out at heels; worn, or diminished: his estate or affairs are out at heels. To turn up his heels; to turn up the knave of trumps at the game of all-fours. HEEL TAP. A peg in the heel of a shoe, taken out when it is finished. A person leaving any liquor in his glass, is frequently called upon by the toast-master to take off his heel-tap. HELL. A taylor's repository for his stolen goods, called cabbage: see CABBAGE. Little hell; a small dark covered passage, leading from London-wall to Bell-alley. HELL-BORN BABE. A lewd graceless youth, one naturally of a wicked disposition. HELL CAT. A termagant, a vixen, a furious scolding woman. See TERMAGANT and VIXEN. HELL HOUND. A wicked abandoned fellow. HELL FIRE DICK. The Cambridge driver of the Telegraph. The favorite companion of the University fashionables, and the only tutor to whose precepts they attend. HELTER SKELTER. To run helter skelter, hand over head, in defiance of order. HEMP. Young hemp; an appellation for a graceless boy. HEMPEN FEVER. A man who was hanged is said to have died of a hempen fever; and, in Dorsetshire, to have been stabbed with a Bridport dagger; Bridport being a place famous for manufacturing hemp into cords. HEMPEN WIDOW. One whose husband was hanged. HEN-HEARTED. Cowardly. HEN HOUSE. A house where the woman rules; called also a SHE HOUSE, and HEN FRIGATE: the latter a sea phrase, originally applied to a ship, the captain of which had his wife on board, supposed to command him. HENPECKED. A husband governed by his wife, is said to be henpecked. HEN. A woman. A cock and hen club; a club composed of men and women. HERE AND THEREIAN. One who has no settled place of residence. HERRING. The devil a barrel the better herring; all equally bad. HERRING GUTTED. Thin, as a shotten herring. HERRING POND. The sea. To cross the herring pond at the king's expence; to be transported. HERTFORDSHIRE KINDNESS. Drinking twice to the same person. HICK. A country hick; an ignorant clown. CANT.