Originally, _cant_ signified the _secret language_, used by the vagrant classes, the »Canting Crew»—gipsies, thieves, beggars, highwaymen, etc. But, in the course of time, the word has become a general, half-contemptuous name for the special phraseology and vocabulary of the lower classes. _Cant_ is the native tongue of _Seven Dials_ and _Whitechapel_, of _Wapping_ and _St. Giles_, of _Clare Market_ and _East India Docks_, generally speaking, of the suburbs and slums of English towns—of all places where »the Rough», the uncultivated individual of the lower classes, has his whereabouts. The labourer generally intermingles his talk more or less with _cant_. It is the jargon of the _Street Arabs_ (the London street-boys), the _Costers_, the _Bookmakers_, the _Hooligans_ (the »Apaches» of London), the _Cheap Jacks_, the _Newspaper Boys_, the _Shoeblack Brigade_, etc., etc. The colloquial language of the cultivated is mixed up with cant-expressions, the amount depending on the individual’s social position, his sex, his age, etc. Even literary language now and then borrows a term or a phrase from _cant_. Words such as _cad_, _pal_, _rum_, _row_, _cove_, etc., are nowadays understood in refined society, and are generally used in colloquial language. The centre and starting-point of _cant_ has always been London—»Rom Vile», the marvellous city—and the vagrant people, assembled thither from all parts of the Empire and of the world, have joined in creating its vocabulary. Its cosmopolitan character makes it a very difficult task to search into its etymological sources, all the more so, as the words and phrases have regularly become more or less altered on their being transplanted into English soil. The cleverest etymologists are here often non-plussed, and, in most cases, we must content ourselves with conjectures. Quite naturally, the main part of its vocabulary consists of _Anglo-Saxon_ words, usually badly maimed. The mysterious Gipsy language, _Romany_, as yet but imperfectly investigated, has furnished a considerable number of old cant-terms. Such words are, for instance, _pal_, _row_, _cove_, _rum_ or _rom_, _shindy_, all original cant-terms, but now partly colloquial[4]. In _French_ originate, e. g., the old cant-word _vile_ (town), _cropoh_ (= crapaud, nick-name for a Frenchman), _savey_ (to know), _bean_ (a generic term for money; bien), _quandary_ (qu’en dirai-je? embarrassment), _dace_ or _duce_ (deux: a twopenny-piece); in _German_: _frow_ (Frau), _kinchen_ (Kindchen), _nix_ (nichts), _gilt_ (old cant for money), _finuf_ (a five-pound-note: fünf); in _Italian_: _case_ (house); _nantee_ (niente: nothing), _letty_ (letto: bedstead), _bene_ (as in _bene darkmans_: good night!); in _Dutch_: _booze_ (buysen: to drink), _bloke_ (blok?: man); in _Latin_: _max_ (maximum?: gin), _panum_ or _panam_ (old cant for _bread_), _nincom_ or _ninny_ (non compos mentis: simpleton), _quid_ (sovereign); in _Hebrew_: _shickster_ (girl; Hebr.