[Ads-l] "run Goods" = "smuggled goods", mid-18th C.

[George Thompson]

 "Run Goods" in the sense of "smuggled goods" appears in a couple of
quotations in the OED, but does not have its own entry.  The paragraph
below also antedates both quotations.



1740:   Last Week an Exciseman, crossing the Thames upon the Ice, either
too venturous, or too curious, stepping out of the Path behind one of the
Booths, slipt into the River; upon which a merry Fellow stept to the Master
of the Booth, and told him If he had conceal'd any run Goods he was ruined,
for that an Exciseman was gone into his Cellar; but on Examination he was
unfortunately lost.

            New-York Weekly Journal,  May 12, 1740, p. 3, col. 1


Locker, noun, †9. *Criminals' slang*. A receiver of stolen goods. *Obs.*
*rare*.

1753   *Discoveries J. Poulter* <file://localhost/javascript/void(0)> (ed.
2) 39,   I am a locker, and Dudder..; I leave Goods at a House, and borrow
Money on them, pretending they are Run Goods, Goods made in London.

[I confess I don't understand this.  Evidently he is pawning stuff "pretending
they are Run Goods," whereas they are inferior "Goods made in London".]


Waiter, noun, 2 c. An officer in the employ of the Customs. *Obs.* exc.
*Hist.*

1818   Scott *Heart of Mid-Lothian* iv, in *Tales of my Landlord*
<file://localhost/javascript/void(0)> 2nd Ser. II. 84   Some tuilzies about
run goods wi' the gaugers and the waiters.

-- 
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998..

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org