Rush/Work the Growler (1883, 1884) on Ancestry.com--(Some questions)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>I'm particularly interested in one sentence below: "It is called
>the growler because it provokes so much trouble in the scramble after
>beer."
>
>    Does this sound plausible? ....

Not particularly, to me. Not impossible, though.

>It might be the "growl-provoker," but any growling would be done by the
>customers.

I think the suffix "-er" could be used in this way (= "-provoker"),
especially in slang. I've often heard a certain type of joke or pun called
a "groaner" (= "groan-provoker"). I don't know whether "howler" = "error"
is etymologically parallel, but I guess it would usually be casually
analyzed so.

What is the origin of "growler" = "[type of] carriage"? I don't know. One
story is that it provoked growls from the passengers.

>And if the Sunday-serving of liquor was outlawed, why does the
>1883 Trenton Times article describe the growler (beer can) as "the
>legitimate outgrowth of the enforcement of the Sunday liquor law"?
>Why "legitimate"?

I think "legitimate" is used here to mean "logical" or "logically expected".

I don't know how the law was formulated or how it was enforced. Maybe
carry-out sale was legal. But even if Sunday sale of beer was entirely
illegal, a seller might have been willing to make a quick surreptitious
take-out sale but not willing to have drinkers blatantly lollygagging at
his bar all day Sunday.

-- Doug Wilson