codicil gentlemen

[George Thompson]

COMMUNICATION.  It is said that a MASQUERADE is held two or three times
in the week, at the large house in Warren-street, composed of white,
black and yellow, to the great annoyance of the neighborhood and public
in general -- besides the total destruction of all the
servants, 'prentice-boys and codicil gentlemen in the city. -- Where is
the usual vigilance of our Magistrates, that this growing evil is
permitted to go on?
        Commercial Advertiser, January 16, 1800, p. 3, col. 2

"Codicil" is italicized in the original, as is white, black, yellow and
growing.

I don't see a meaning for "codicil" in the OED that explains this.
Perhaps the family scapegrace who is allowed a small allowance in the
codicil to his unhappy father's will?

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.