[Ads-l] "paddy wagon" antedated

[Stephen Goranson]

Though "paddy wagon" came to be associated with police vehicles, some early uses associate it with wheelbarrows. OED (via Sam Clements) has 1909 for "paddy wagon."
Two newspapers via
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/
involve election bets where the loser must ride in a wheelbarrow.
1908, May 29. St. John's Review [Ont.]
"There is a Paddy-wagon ride coming in any event."
1896, Nov 8. Houston Daily Post
"Sioux in a Paddy Wagon" [headline]
1868, Nov. 5 Milwaukee Daily Sentinel [19th. c. news.] "Wheelbarrow...one little thought its symmetrical proportions deserved the vulgar epithet of "paddy wagon" of a by-standing Democrat of the old school."
Three more from Milwaukee Daily Sentinel: December 6, 1869  [Two men, recent arrivals, charged with drunkenness] "having just come across the Herring-pond in a Dutch shallop on wheels [sic]. The assertion the the boat was a paddy-wagon, and its occupants Fenianers, is groundless, [disproved by their names]
June 29, 1872  "... borrowed a wheelbarrow....accordingly wheeled to town and barrowed into the station [and] ...court room.His little scheme to become possessed of a "paddy wagon" of the first order led to an expense of $15 and costs."
July 12, 1876 "William Brotherhood mourns the loss of a one-wheeled carriage of the pattern known as a "paddy-wagon." The bow wheeler was stolen...."

Gleanings in Bee Culture 1903, Dec. 1 v. 31, page 1021 [Google Books] "Try the experiment some time with a small paddy wheelbarrow, with a small wheel, and then with a modern wheelbarrow with a large wheel."


Stephen Goranson

http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/

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