place of safety. A swag of any thing, signifies emphatically a great deal. To have knap'd a good swag, is to have got a good booty.
1819. Vaux, Memoirs, s.v. Swag. Wearing-apparel, linen, piece-goods, etc., are all comprehended under the name of swag, when describing any speak lately made, etc., in order to distinguish them from plate, jewellery, or other more portable articles.
1823. Bee, Dict. of Turf, s.v. Swag (the)—store of money. 'The swag lies upstairs, in a chest of drawers. . . . Rum-swag—A good deal of it.
1827. Cunningham, Two Years in New South Wales, ii. 59. A number of the slang phrases current in St. Giles's Greek bid fair to become legitimatized in the dictionary of this colony: plant, swag, pulling up, and other epithets of the Tom and Jerry school, are established—the dross passing here as genuine, even among all ranks.
1837. Mudie, Felonry of New South Wales, 181. In short, having brought with her a supply of the swag, as the convicts call their ill-gotten cash, a wife seldom fails of having her husband assigned to her, in which case the transported felon finds himself his own master.
1838. Dickens, Oliver Twist, xix. 'It's all arranged about bringing off the swag, is it?' asked the Jew. Sikes nodded.
1840. Barham, Ingolds. Legends, 'Misadv. at Margate.' He said 'he'd done me wery brown, and neatly stowed the swag.'
1851-61. Mayhew, London Lab., ii. 93. Swagmen who sell low-priced millinery.
1856. Reade, Never too Late, etc., xlvi. He will shake all that nonsense to blazes when he finds himself out under the moon with the swag on one side and the gallows on the other.
1861. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, xxxvii. If any enterprising burglar had taken it into his head to crack that particular crib known as the Bridge Hotel, and got clean off with the swag, he might have retired on the hard-earned fruits of a well-spent life into happier lands.
1897. Marshall, Pomes, 121. The gentleman swore he'd been bested, And Sam had passed on the swag.
1900. Flynt, Tramps, 282. 'It ain't such a bad lot,' he said; 'I chew every day, get a big swag once in a while.'
3. (Australian).—A tramp's bundle in a bluey (q.v.); hence personal luggage; traps (q.v.). As verb = to tramp the bush carrying a swag; swagman (swagger or swaggle) = a man travelling in search of work: cf. Sundowner.
1853. Sidney, Three Colonies, 361. His leathern overalls, his fancy stick, and his swag done up in mackintosh.
1861. McCombie, Australian Sketches, 5. There was the solitary pedestrian, with the whole of his supplies, consisting of a blanket and other necessary articles, strapped across his shoulders: this load is called the swag and the mode of travelling swagging it.
1865. J. O. Tucker, Australian Story, i. 86. The cumbrous weight of blankets that comprised my swag.
1873. Trollope, Australia and New Zealand, i. 285. Swag, which consists of his personal properties rolled up in a blanket.
1875. Lady Barker, Station Amusements in New Zealand, 154. Describing the real swagger, clad in flannel shirt, moleskin trowsers, and what were once thick boots.
1879. J. Brunton Stephens, Drought and Doctrine (Works, 309). Rememberin' the needful, I gets up an' quietly slips To the porch to see—a swagsman—with our bottle at his lips.
1883. Keighley, Who are You? 36. Then took a drink of tea . . . Such as the swagmen in our goodly land Have with some humour named the post-and-rail.
1890. Argus, 2 Aug., 4, 2. He strapped the whole lot together, swag-like. Ibid. (1896), The Argus, 23 March, 5, 1. The minister's house is the sure mark for every stone-broke swagger in search of clothes or victuals.
1891. Boldrewood, A Sydney-side Saxon, 156. We pulled up a swagman. He was walking very slow; he was a bit lame too. His swag wasn't heavy, for he had only a rag of a blue blanket, a billy of water in his hand, and very little else.
1902. Pall Mall Gaz., 26 July, 2. 1. The unmarried shearer, roaming, swag on back, from station to station, chasing summer down the latitudes, leads an active, pleasant life enough.
