catchphrases not in Whiting, part 3

[GEORGE THOMPSON]

        Late last spring I sent to the list notes on proverbs, proverb-like
expressions and catchphrases from my notes, which were either not in
B. J. Whiting's collections of such expressions or which antedated
his earliest source.  Summer vacation distracted me from this
project.  I can't say that I have heard clamoring from the gallery
calling on me to take it up again, but what the hell, I'm going to
anyway.

****

1835:   . . . 4,000 widows, many of them "fair, fat and forty". . . .
Morning Herald, May 6, 1835, p. 2, col. 3

1840:   [A sailor] was charged with assaulting a beauty of the fair, fat
and forty variety. . . .  Morning Herald, January 11, 1840, p. 4,
col. 1

1855:   Eliza Delaney -- a personification of the royal alliteration of
"fat, fair and forty"  New York Daily Times, April 5, 1855, p. 2,
col. 5

not in Taylor & Whiting; Whiting, MPPS: 1922 (Ulysses)  [Mentioned by
William Matthews, in his book on cockney; apparently the refrain of a
song.]

****

1819:   At a recent anniversary in Boston of Free Blacks, met to
celebrate the abolition, or as they term it the Bobolition of the
slave trade; the chairman rose after dinner, and said, "Gemmen, I be
Massa Peter Guss, and give you this toast, That President Madison be
no more like General Washington than puté finger in the fire, and
haul it out again!"  William Faux, Memorable Days in America: Being
the Journal of a Tour to the United States, N. Y. AMS Press, 1969, p.
9.  Originally published in 1823.

1822:   You dress a self up in de fine blue a cot, and a bandalore
breechum, and tink a look like a gemman, but no more like a gemman dan
put a finger in a de fire, and take him out again, widout you put a de
money in a de plate.  Anne Jackson Mathews.  Memoirs of Charles
Mathews, Comedian, by Mrs. Mathews.  London: Richard Bentley, 1839.
Vol. 3, p. 390-91.

[Charles Mathews was an English entertainer who was noted for his
skill in rendering dialects; he was travelling in the U. S.,
picking up material for his next show, and writing a letter to
his wife, boasting of his success in picking up black dialect: even
the Yankees approve.]

Whiting: EAPPP: has the citation from 1819, but this is an
interesting expression, so I am throwing the 1822 citation your way
anyhow.

****

1837:   With [false] savings like these, they toddle home in triumph,
cackling all the way like a goose that has got ankle deep into good
luck.  New York Times, August 21, 1837, p. 2, col. 6

Not in RHHDAS (under ankle, cackle, goose); Whiting, EAPPP; Taylor
& Whiting; Whiting, MPPS; nor OED

****

1842:   When he first went to Boston he was as green a gosling as ever
gobbled garbage.  The Flash, Vol. 1, #4, Sunday Morning, July 10,
1842, p. 2, col. 1

Not in DAE; Taylor & Whiting; Whiting, MPPS; OED; nor Partridge's
Catchphrases.

****

1834:   He will have his half out of the middle! and I have to sleep
both s'des of him!  New-York Evening Post, February 27, 1834, p. 2,
col. 7  [The speaker is a little boy complaining about his brother]

Not in Taylor & Whiting; I seem not to have consulted Whiting, MPPS;
not in DAP.  This is such a familiar phrase; I heard it from my
mother.

****

1842:   . . . one of them knows no more of fighting than a hog does of a
holiday.  The Flash, July 10, 1842, p. 2, col. 2.  In NYC Archives,
New York County District Attorney's files, Box 410, for July 14,
1842.

Not in Whiting, EAPPP; Taylor & Whiting: 1878

****

1824:   It is an old adage, that seamen get their money like horses and
spend it like asses. . . .  New-York Evening Post, September 7, 1824,
p. 2, col. 2

1837:   Earning money like Horses and spending it like Asses.  NY
Journal of Commerce, November 16, 1837, p. 2, col. 6  [a headline,
applied to the improvidence of "the lower order of Irish."]

Not in Whiting, EAPPP; Taylor & Whiting; nor Whiting, MPPS; William
Matthews, Cockney Past and Present, London & Boston: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1972, p. 135, says that this is in Mayhew.

****

More to come.

GAT