Shuysters and Skinners (1845)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

I came across this passage looking for those Philadelphia gangs of the
1840s (Bouncers, Skinners, Killers).  Here's another sense of "skinner"
('fleecer', antedating the OED's 1856 cite) -- coupled with our old friend
"sh(u)yster", less than two years after its coinage:

-----
_Tioga Eagle_ (Wellsboro, Pa.), Feb. 26, 1845, p. 1, col. 3
"Festival of the Sucking Lawyers"
...
Mr. Van Witherem rose to give as an irregular toast: 'The Shuysters and
Skinners of the Tombs -- it is true they were the outsiders of the
profession, but still as they hung to the _skirts_ of the regulars, and
had been partakers of the _fleece_, he did not see how they could suffer
such sharp practice to be _shorn_ of every _shred_ of the usual honors.'
-- Here the president interposed and insisted that the Skinners and
Shuysters had brought the profession into disgrace, and ought to be
scratched out by a _bar_ sinister.
-----

There's no attribution given to this humorous piece, but it's possible
that it was reprinted from a New York paper (the reference to "the Tombs"
certainly suggests so).


--Ben Zimmer