This fascinating, unrecorded compendium of colorful jargon offers numerous examples of “Language Used by Professional Thieves, Bank Forgers, River Pirates, Burglars and other Defraudators of Society.”

The text gives both definitions of words and phrases such as “a peter is a safe,” “soap means money, “vamose [sic] is running away,” as well as example sentences like “When the bloak [sic] was copped he sent a century to his mouthpiece means when he got arrested he sent his lawyer 100 dollars” or “He grafted at the gaffs and got fifty red thimbles means that he operated at the fair and secured 50 gold watches.”

Most of the words and phrases which appear in the “Thieves Slang” are accounted for in “Green’s Dictionary of Slang,” the largest historical dictionary of English slang, but there is some variation as to the definitions. “Soft sugar,” for example, appears in Green’s Dictionary only to mean “something easy.” Here it is defined as “paper money.” The example sentences are seemingly the author’s inventions.

Also included is a poem titled “San Quentin” which was composed during one of the author’s many stints there. The first stanza reads, “San Quentin is a place of care / A grave for man alive / A tombstone for to try a friend / But not a place for man to thrive."

Both the “Thieves Slang” and San Quentin poem were penned by Henry Allen who describes himself in the text as, “one whose experience as a criminal in all parts of the world is considered second to none.” English-born, Allen spent most of his life in correctional facilities on both sides of the Atlantic, eventually earning the moniker of “Chief of San Quentin” due to his frequent stays. However, in 1870, after serving a five-year bid for pilfering $250.00 from the till where he worked, Allen renounced his criminal ways, cast aside his “nips and jimmy,” and took to lecturing on the subject instead.

In 1873, he toured around California, receiving a mostly lukewarm reception. A review of his lecture, published in the Petaluma Evening Argus in July of that year, complained that Allen’s speaking “was not of the most approved style, as he did not stick to one point long enough to elucidate it completely, but shifted from one to another In a careless and indifferent manner.” This and other published reviews of the lecture mention both his “description of the language used by the members of his former profession” and the San Quentin poem.

An article published in the Sacramento Bee later that month wrote that Allen was disgusted with the unfavorable response he had received. He told the paper, “When I take into consideration the cold reception I met with by the residents of this city I am fully convinced that they look upon me as one unworthy of kind consideration.” In the article, he also mentions that he had written a book detailing his life behind bars, “which is considered to be the best criminal work ever written in this world’s history.” (Though he does not specify who exactly considered it as such.) Allen’s opus does not appear to ever have been published, which is possibly due to the fact that he perished in a railway accident in Oakland later that year.

It is unclear if the present text was used during Allen's lecture, as notes for his unpublished tome, or something else entirely. Regardless, it a fascinating collection and an exciting addition to the scholarship of slang.

From the estate of Ron Lerch.