to cant, and the onely thing they practise is to creepe in at windowes, or celler doores.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Kinchin, a little child.
1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, xxxiv. We did the kinchin no harm.
1836. W. H. Smith, The Individual, 13 Nov. 'The Thieves' Chaunt.' Her duds are bob—she's a kinchin crack, And I hopes as how she'll never back.
1837. Disraeli, Venetia, Bk. i. xiv. He is no lanspresado, or I am a kinchin.
1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, xlii. 'The kinchins,' said the Jew, 'is the young children that's sent on errands by their mothers with sixpences and shillings.
1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 13. 'Let's have a look at the kinchen that ought to have been throttled,' added he, snatching the child from Wood.
1841. Leman Rede, Sixteen String Jack, i. 3. Kit. Peter, don't patter; you're werry good in the fancy line—in the light part of our business,—such as robbing a kinchen of it's coral, filching an old lady's redicule, or getting up small talk vith a nursery maid, vhile you takes a vax impression of the key.
1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, xxiii. 'So boss,' began the ruffian, not looking at him; 'we ain't fit company for the likes of that kinchin, etc.?'
1876. Hindley, Adventures of A Cheap Jack, p. 2. Nor is his crying pal the kinchin any more faithfully drawn.
Kinchin-cove, subs. (Old Cant).—1.
A child: see Kinchin.
1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 76. [See quot. under Kinchin].
1608. Dekker, Belman of London, in Wks. (Grosart), iii. 105. The last Ranke of those Runnagates is fild vp with kinchyn coes; and they are little boyes whose parents (hauing beene beggers) are dead, or else such as haue run away from their maisters, and in stead of a trade to liue by, follow this kinde of life to be lowsie by.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Kinchin-coes, the Sixteenth Rank of the Canting Tribe, being little Children whose Parents are dead, having been Beggers; as also young Ladds running from their Masters, who are first taught Canting, then thieving.
1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Kinchin. Kinchin coes, orphan beggar boys, educated in thieving.
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 25. [ed. 1854]. Look you my kinchin cove.
1870. All the Year Round, 'Bye-*gone Cant', 5 March. Suppose a kinchin cove should hear the twittle-twattle of cobble colter, or the sagacious cackle of tib of the buttery, and the said kinchin cove should think a dinner off these big birds would be delicious and should steal them for that purpose, short work would have been made of it, and kinchin cove would simply have been hanged.
2. (Old Cant).—A little man.
1671. R. Head, English Rogue, 1. v. 50. (1874). Kinchin cove, a little man.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v.
1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
3. (Old Cant).—A man who robs or kidnaps children: cf. Kinchin Lay.
Kinchin-lay, subs. (old).—See quot.
1838. [Kinchin (q.v.) + Lay
(q.v.)].
1836. Dickens, Oliver Twist, xlii. The kinchin is the young children that's sent on errands by their mothers, with sixpences and shillings; and the lay is just to take their money away—they've always got it ready in their hands.
1871. Standard, 13 Sept. The prisoner, it appeared, is an adept at the kinchin-lay, a term known to the initiated for robbing children.
Kinchin-mort, subs. (Old Cant).—See
quots.
1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 76. A kynching morte is a lytle Gyrle; the Mortes their mothers carries them at their backes in their slates, whiche is their shetes, and bryngs them vp sauagely, tyll they growe to be rype, and soone rype, soone rotten.
