language of opium fiends, 1889

[George Thompson]

        SCENES IN AN OPIUM JOINT.  ***  [on 14th street, in "the old Palm Garden"]  "Who's his jags?" sharply queried the door-keeper.  "He's all right," announced the stranger.  "He was sent here by right people."
        ***  "Give us a layout and a shell of 'dope,'" ordered the reporter's companion.  [The layout includes] a sponge called . . . a "yen-suey;" a long tapering needle . . . called a "yen-hock;" and the opium called "hop-in-yen," "dope," or "hop" for short.
        The World, February 10, 1889, p. 20, cols. 5-6.

dope:  HDAS: (4b) "illegal stupefying or stimulating drug", 1898-1900, &c.

hop:  HDAS: 1886, 1887, 1896, &c

hop-in-yen:  OED lists "hop" in the sense of opium under "hop", the plant used in making beer; HDAS gives an etymology of "hop toy", meaning "bliss container", or Mandarin "ho ping", "bliss".  Is "hop-in-yen" a possibility?

his jags: HDAS has "jag" (3) "a peculiar or inept fellow", from 1906, or (2) "a drunken person", from a1890-96; here this sounds more like a variant of "his nibs" (which HDAS has from 1848 in the U. S).

shell: didn't see this sense in OED; CDS has from late 19th C, U. S.

yen-hock: OED: 1882

yen-suey: not in OED; CDS has "yen-shee suey", "opium residue dissolved in wine", 1930s-1950s

GAT

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

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