[Ads-l] fall money (1882)

[Ben Zimmer]

Following up on my "fall guy" post... "fall money" meaning 'money set
aside by a criminal for use if he should be arrested' is in OED2 and
HDAS from 1893. Here are examples from the 1880s:

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Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago), Feb. 20, 1882, p. 3, col. 1
[I]f the police will but do their duty and arrest them [sc.,
confidence men], their backers and bailers will soon get tired of
providing "fall money" for them, and they will depart for more
salubrious climes.
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Boston Herald, Apr. 15, 1888, p. 18, col. 5
There is the advance man and the treasurer, representing the "backer,"
who puts up the "fall money." This last term means a good deal to the
thief, and he is happiest, or speaking with a conscious regard for
Christian principle, most hopeful, who has the best supply of "fall
money," for his chances of imprisonment are then not very great. When
a thief finds himself in the clutches of the law, he is said to have
"fallen." If the case against him is a "dead open and shut" -- meaning
that there is no chance of acquittal -- the "fall man" secures bail,
or rather advances it out of the general fund in the treasury, and the
prisoner at once "skips."
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Boston Herald, Aug. 12, 1889, p. 4, col. 6
The thieves are very often managed. A fund is subscribed, so that in
case a man should "fall" -- a technical word meaning arrest -- he can
be bailed. The fund is called "fall money."
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--bgz

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