[Ads-l] OED Newgate Bird -- Alternative meaning

[Robin Hamilton]

OED has for NEWGATE,n -- under C2: "Newgate bird n. slang Obs. a jailbird."
[1607 and later]

In 1676, the meaning, "a child born in Newgate", appears:

<<   There were two women indicted for stealing a piece of Silk from a Mercer in
the City, but they were not both arraigned, for one of them was brought a bed of
a _Newgate_ bird; and the other refused her tryal, because her sister Shop lift
could not come to take her trial ...   >>

Old Bailey Proceedings, 5th April 1676.
Reference Number: t16760405-11

[The probable author of the above, David Mallet, was a quite unnervingly
accurate reporter of criminal cant, so I'm prepared to believe it was in use in
that sense among members of the Family in the late seventeenth century.]

Robin Hamilton

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