"blue murder" antedating?

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Wed, Aug 09, 2006 at 05:38:38PM -0700, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> OED mentions this phrase but darned if I can find the citation that goes with it.  Ah, here's one:
>

OED2 cites the first edition of Hotten (1859), among others. The
entry is in suspended animation right now, having been moved from
_murder_ in OED2 to _blue_ (where it does not yet appear, this
entry not having been edited yet) in OED3.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

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