Several words are entirely obsolete. “ALYBBEG” no longer means a bed, nor “ASKEW” a cup. “BOOGET,”[17] now-a-days, would not be understood for a basket; neither would “GAN” pass current for mouth. “FULLAMS” was the old cant term for false or loaded dice, and although used by Shakespere in this sense, is now unknown and obsolete. Indeed, as Tom Moore somewhere remarks, the present Greeks of St. Giles, themselves, would be thoroughly puzzled by many of the ancient canting songs,—taking for example, the first verse of an old favourite: Bing out, bien Morts, and toure and toure, Bing out, bien Morts, and toure; For all your duds are bing’d awast; The bien cove hath the loure.[18] But I think I cannot do better than present to the reader at once an entire copy of the first Canting Dictionary ever compiled. As before mentioned, it was the work of one Thos. Harman, a gentleman who lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Some writers have remarked that Decker[19] was the first to compile a Dictionary of the vagabonds’ tongue; whilst Borrow,[20] and Moore, the poet, stated that Richard Head performed that service in his _Life of an English Rogue_, published in the year 1680. All these statements are equally incorrect, for the first attempt was made more than a century before the latter work was issued. The quaint spelling and old-fashioned phraseology are preserved, and the reader will quickly detect many vulgar street words, old acquaintances, dressed in antique garb.[21] _ABRAHAM-MEN_, be those that fayn themselves to have beene mad, and have bene kept either in Bethelem, or in some other pryson a good time. _ALYBBEG_, a bedde. _ASKEW_, a cuppe. _AUTEM_, a churche. _AUTEM MORTES_, married wemen as chaste as a cowe. _BAUDYE BASKETS_, bee women who goe with baskets and capcases on their armes, wherein they have laces, pinnes, nedles, whyte inkel, and round sylke gyrdels of all colours. _BECK_ [Beek], a constable. _BELLY-CHETE_, apron. _BENE_, good. _Benar_, better. _BENSHIP_, very good. _BLETING CHETE_, a calfe or sheepe. _BOOGET_, a travelling tinker’s baskete. _BORDE_, a shilling. _BOUNG_, a purse [_Friesic_, pong]. _BOWSE_, drink. _BOWSING-KEN_, a alehouse. _BUFE_ [buffer, a man], a dogge. _BYNGE A WASTE_, go you hence. _CACKLING-CHETE_, a coke [cock], or capon. _CASSAN_ [cassam], cheese. _CASTERS_, a cloake. _CATETH_, “the vpright Cofe _cateth_ to the Roge” [probably a shortening or misprint of _Canteth_]. _CHATTES_, the gallowes. _CHETE_ [see what has been previously said about this word]. _CLY_ [a pocket], to take, receive, or have. _COFE_ [cove], a person. _COMMISSION_ [mish], a shirt. _COUNTERFET CRANKE_, these that do counterfet the Cranke be yong knaves and yonge harlots, that deeply dissemble the falling sicknes. _CRANKE_ [cranky, foolish], falling evil [or wasting sickness]. _CRASHING-CHETES_, teeth.