6. Character Academy.--At these places false characters are drawn up, to say nothing of the concoction of schemes of robbery.
7. Floating Academy (thieves').--The hulks or prison ships were formerly so-called. When the regulations as regards transportation were relaxed, convicts condemned to hard labour were sent on board these vessels.
8. Gammoning Academy.--A reformatory.
Acause, conj. (vulgar).--A corruption of 'because.'
Accommodation House, subs. (popular).--A brothel. Also frequently applied to what in police court phraseology are known as disorderly houses, i.e., houses where rooms can be hired for shorter or longer periods as desired.--See Bed house.
According to Cocker.--See Cocker.
According to the Revised Statutes.--See Revised statutes.
ACCOUNT. TO GO ON THE ACCOUNT, verb. phr. (old nautical).--To join in a filibustering or buccaneering expedition; to turn pirate. Ogilvie says, probably from the parties sharing, as in a commercial venture.
1812. Scott, Letter to a Friend. I hope it is no new thing for gentlemen of fortune who are going on the account to change a captain now and then.
To account for (sporting).--To kill; literally to be answerable for bringing down one's share of the shooting[**p2 ; ?] to make away with.
1846-48. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. xx. The persecuted animals [rats] bolted above ground: the terrier accounted for one, the keeper for another.
1858. Letter from Lahore, 28 September, in Times, 19 November. In the course of one week they were hunted up and accounted for; and you know that in Punjab phraseology accounting for means the extreme fate due to mutineers. [m.]
Accounts. To cast up one's accounts, verb. phr. (old cant).--To vomit. Still common; quoted by Grose [1785]. The expression sometimes runs, amongst seafaring men, to audit one's ACCOUNTS AT THE COURT OF Neptune.
Eng. Synonyms. To shoot the cat; to cat.
French Synonyms. Semer des miettes (lit. to sow or scatter crumbs); piquer le renard (lit. to goad the fox[** )]. Cf. 'to shoot the cat.' The old French phrase was chasser or escorcher le renard, either because, says Cotgrave, 'in spueing one makes a noise like a fox that barks, or because the flaying of so unsavory an animal will make any man spue'; renverser (lit. to overturn, to upset); faire restitution (lit. to make amends; to restore); revoir la carte (lit. to look at the bill of fare again).
(Thieves').--To turn Queen's evidence.
Accumulatives, subs. (American).--These journalistic sparring matches are essentially a 'Yankee notion.' In England they are called codicils (q.v.), under which see an amusing example which will illustrate their character, as also the length to which American editors sometimes go in heaping Ossa upon Pelion.
