(Some of you may remember this from "Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants". I thought it would be fun to share it.)

Suppose you screeve or go cheap-jack
Or fake the broads or fig a nag
Or thimble-rig or knap a yack
Or pitch a snide or smash a rag
Suppose you duff or nose and lag
Or get the straight, and land your pot
How do you melt the multy swag?
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack
Or moskeneer, or flash the drag
Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack
Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag
Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag
Rattle the tats, or mark the spot
You can not bank a single stag
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Suppose you try a different tack,
And on the square you flash your flag
At penny-a-lining make your whack
Or with the mummers mug and gag
For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag
At any graft, no matter what,
Your merry goblins soon stravag
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

It's up the spout and Charley Wag
With wipes and tickers and what not.
Until the squeezer nips your scrag,
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

W.E. Henly

Thank you. I wanted a copy for a lecture I am doing.

Mark

How about a modern english translation of that argot?

I wonder if K Weill might have looked at this in context of his "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogonny"