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

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Michael Quinion:

>By the way, I have been assuming that we have here a unusual case of
>an expression with two completely different sources, in that "rush
>the growler" is known from Britain, referring to a pub crawl, whilst
>it is almost contemporaneously recorded in the USA referring to
>collecting beer in a can from a bar. These are linked, of course, and
>one can easily invent a scenario by which the British term might have
>been taken to the US (presumably that way, since "growler" is older
>in Britain?) and subsequently modified in sense, but it seems a
>little improbable, especially in view of the other phrases with
>similar senses we've heard about, which are natively American.

What is the evidence for "work the growler" = "go on a pub crawl" (UK) from
ca. 1880-90? It certainly seems very logical and reasonable. But Farmer and
Henley (1893) shows both "growler" = "cab" and "growler" = "pitcher" (US)
without making any such connection. I see the "pub crawl" interpretation in
a French book ("Le Slang") (1923), which is cited by Partridge. Could this
be a misunderstanding? Are there known early supporting examples?

-- Doug Wilson