en' and 'backdown' at once if confronted fearlessly. With many of them their courage arises from confidence in their own powers and knowledge of the fear in which they are held; and men of this type often show the white feather when they get into a 'tight place.' Others, however, will face any odds without flinching, and when mortally wounded, have been known to fight with a cool ferocious despair that was terrible. During the last two or three years, stockmen have united to put down these dangerous characters, often by the most summary exercise of lynch law; and, as a consequence, many localities once infested by bad men are now perfectly law-abiding.
Bad Match Twist, subs. phr. (hairdressers').—A man who has red, or carotty hair and black whiskers is said to have a bad match twist.
Badminton, subs. (common).—1. A cooling drink; a kind of claret-cup, so called because invented at the Duke of Beaufort's seat of the same name. Composed of claret, sugar, spice, soda-water, and ice.
1845. Disraeli, Sybil, bk. I., ch. i. 'Waiter, bring me a tumbler of Badminton.'
1858. Whyte Melville, Digby Grand, ch. ix. An enormous measure of Badminton, that grateful compound of mingled claret, sugar, and soda-water.
1868. Ouida, Under Two Flags, ch. ix. Looking up out of a great silver flagon of Badminton, with which he was ending his breakfast.
2. (pugilistic).—Blood; from the similarity in colour to the summer drink of the same name. Claret (q.v.), for a like reason, is also, in the language of the prize-ring, synonymous with blood.
Bad Record.—See Record.
Bad Shot, subs. (popular).—An abortive attempt; a woman's guess.
1844. Kinglake, Eothen, viii., 137. I secretly smiled at this last prophecy as a bad shot.
1859. Rev. E. Bradley ('Cuthbert Bede') in Notes and Queries, 2 S., viii., p. 492. A bad shot is one of the worst exposures of his ignorance that a University man when up for examination can make.
See, however, Shot.
Bad Slang, subs. (circus and showmen's).—Faked up monstrosities; spurious curiosities.
1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 206. Roderick Palsgrave was considered by all who knew him to be the best showman of a bad slang that ever travelled. He would get hold of any black girl or woman, dress her up, and then show her as one of the greatest novelties ever seen.
Bag, subs. (old slang).—1. A woman when enceinte was said 'to have a bag.' Cf., To bag. Sense 3.
2. (Westminster School).—Milk.
To empty the bag, phr. (old).—To tell, or disclose the whole truth; to wind up an argument or discussion.
TO give the bag, phr. (old).—1. Formerly used in varying senses. In the following quotation it conveys, says Nares, the idea of chicanery and cheating. This, however, is doubtful, but compare 'to give the bag to hold.'
1592. Greene, Quip, in works IX., 263. You shall be . . . lighte witted
