a "fence", as a business, not a person

[Jonathan Lighter]

Great!

JL

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 12:10 PM, George Thompson
<george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:

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> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      a "fence", as a business, not a person
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>
> The word "fence" in the sense of a person who buys stolen goods is pretty
> old, though it's notable that the first 3 citations in HDAS (fence, noun,
> 1a) are from slang dictionaries, 1698/99 to Francis Grose.
>
> The word "fence" in the sense of a place where stolen goods are bought is
> much less old.  HDAS (1b) has a citation from the mid-1820s, but one taken
> from Partridge's Dictionary of the Underworld, then 1846.
>
> I have had in my notes for some years now the following free-range "fence",
> from a newspaper of 1834:
>        Con.--Meet me to night at the "Pigeon House" next to the new
> "fence," and I'll go and show you.
>        The Sun, June 20, 1834, p. 2, col. 2  [This is from a dialogue
> between a Convict and an undercover cop.]
> I probably have posted this here, at some time.
>
> The following is an antedating to HDAS's earliest free-range "fence", and
> though it isn't an antedating to my own notes, it offers a very nice
> definition:
>        Another "Fence" broken up. -- By the name of "fence," among police
> officers, is understood a depository for stolen goods, kept by some cunning
> and experienced negotiator and dealer with professed thieves.  Of these
> infamous receptacles, there are at least, it is computed, two hundred in
> this city, more than two thirds of which are in the five points, and its
> neighborhood, and the majority of the remainder in streets immediately
> contiguous to the North and East rivers.
>        New York Transcript, March 31, 1836, p. 2, col. 4
>
> OED has 8b. A receiving house for stolen goods, from 1847.
>
> 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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