codicil gentlemen (???)

[George Thompson]

     Communication.  It is said that a masquerade is held two or three
times in the week, at the large house in Warren-street, composed of *white*
, *black* and *yellow*, to the great annoyance of the neighborhood and
public in general -- besides the total destruction of all the servants,
'prentice-boys and codicil *gentlemen *in the city. -- Where is the usual
vigilance of our Magistrates, that this *growing* evil is permitted to go
on?
     Commercial Advertiser, January 16, 1800, p. 3, col. 2.

Meaning someone who appears in the codicil of a will as "my scapegrace son"
or the like, and is left a pittance to live on?

GAT
--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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