Now the word CANT in its old sense, and SLANG[6] in its modern application, although used by good writers and persons of education as synonymes, are in reality quite distinct and separate terms. CANT, apart from religious hypocrisy, refers to the old secret language, by allegory or distinct terms, of Gipseys, thieves, tramps, and beggars. SLANG represents that evanescent, vulgar language, ever changing with fashion and taste, which has principally come into vogue during the last seventy or eighty years, spoken by persons in every grade of life, rich and poor, honest and dishonest.[7] CANT is old; SLANG is always modern and changing. To illustrate the difference: a thief in _Cant_ language would term a horse a PRANCER or a PRAD,—while in _slang_, a man of fashion would speak of it as a BIT OF BLOOD, or a SPANKER, or a NEAT TIT. A handkerchief, too, would be a BILLY, a FOGLE, or a KENT RAG, in the secret language of low characters,—whilst amongst vulgar persons, or those who aped their speech, it would be called a RAG, a WIPE, or a CLOUT. CANT was formed for purposes of secrecy. SLANG is indulged in from a desire to appear familiar with life, gaiety, town-humour, and with the transient nick names and street jokes of the day. Both Cant and Slang, I am aware, are often huddled together as synonymes, but they are distinct terms, and as such should be used. To the Gipseys, beggars and thieves are undoubtedly indebted for their Cant language. The Gipseys landed in this country early in the reign of Henry the Eighth. They were at first treated as conjurors and magicians,—indeed they were hailed by the populace with as much applause as a company of English theatricals usually receive on arriving in a distant colony. They came here with all their old Eastern arts of palmistry, fortune-telling, doubling money by incantation and burial,—shreds of pagan idolatry; and they brought with them, also, the dishonesty of the lower caste of Asiatics, and the vagabondism they had acquired since leaving their ancient dwelling places in the East, many centuries before. They possessed, also, a _language_ quite distinct from anything that had been heard in England, and they claimed the title of Egyptians, and as such, when their thievish wandering propensities became a public nuisance, were cautioned and proscribed in a royal proclamation by Henry VIII.[8] The Gipseys were not long in the country before they found native imitators. Vagabondism is peculiarly catching. The idle, the vagrant, and the criminal outcasts of society, caught an idea from the so called Egyptians—soon corrupted to Gipseys. They learned from them how to tramp, sleep under hedges and trees, to tell fortunes, and find stolen property for a consideration—frequently, as the saying runs, before it was lost. They also learned the value and application of a _secret tongue_, indeed all the accompaniments of maunding and imposture, except thieving and begging, which were well