Gig

“ Not less moving are the reflections of the religious observer who saw a man driving clumsily in a gig.—"'What (I said to myself) if a single untoward circumstance should happen! Should the horse take fright, or the wheel on either side get entangled, or the gig upset,—in either case what can preserve them? ”

“ Nor is the existence forgotten of those country gentlemen and City merchants who, seventy years ago, rode to and from the City on horseback; but they also formed an exception. Already, by some ten years or so, the commercial travellers, as a body, had left the saddle and taken to what was, in its first inception, essentially the vehicle of the commercial56 representative. This was the “gig.” The gig at once became a favourite middle-class conveyance. Thurtell, the flashy betting-man, vulgar roué, and murderer, was thought by a witness “a respectable man: he kept a gig.” ”

“ Ten or twelve little gigs are in waiting on the gravel; some like the peasants' ones, but others — kept as heirlooms in families — of the right old-fashioned kind, the body carved, gilded, and painted with curious scenes, the wheels very high, seat very narrow. The hostess pairs off her party, and woe to the luckless couple who do not like the arrangements; for each driver forthwith seats himself on the left side of his gig, passing his right arm round his fair companion 's waist. ”

“ With a gig you cannot get about amongst bye-lanes and across fields, through bridle-ways and hunting-gates; and to tramp it is too slow, leaving the labour out of the question, and that is not a trifle. ”

“ Even the gig, to carry two, of the better bucolic class, has now become obsolete, as the train pours out, at the station, its living stream of market folk, male and female, within a few minutes of leaving their own doors several miles away. ”

“ For synonyms, see Sammy-soft.
1797. Colman, Heir at Law, iv., 3. Dick.—What a damn’d gig you look like. Pangloss.—A gig! umph! that’s an Eton phrase—the Westminsters call it Quiz.
1870. Athenæum, 16 Apr. He would now be what Eton used to call a gig, and Westminster a Quiz.
8. (old) .—Fun; a frolic; a spree. [Possibly from Fr.: gigue = a lively dance movement. Cf., gigue et jon = a Bacchanalian exclamation of sailors. In Florio, too, frottolare = ‘to sing gigges, rounds, or ... wanton verses.’] Full of gig = full of laughter, ripe for mischief. ”

“ Why they’ve got the cheek to pitch their stall with their worms opposite a regular medical man’s shop, and say, ‘Go over the way and see what he’ll do—he’ll drive up in a horse and gig to your door, and make you pay for it too ”

“ Fograms, quizzes, treats, and bores, and gigs, Were held in some account with ancient prigs.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. xiv. Such a set of gigs, my dear, I never saw in my life; large underbred horses, and not a good-looking man amongst them.
3. (old) .—The nose. For synonyms, see Conk. To snitchell the gig = to pull the nose. Grunter’s gig = a hog’s snout. ”

“ Randall, Diary. In search of lark, or some delicious gig, The mind delights on, when ’tis in prime twig.
1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, i., 3. I hope we shall have many a bit of gig together.
1888. Besant, Fifty Years Ago, p. 134. A laughter-loving lass of eighteen who dearly loved a bit of gig.
9. (old) .—The mouth. For synonyms, see Potato-trap.
1871. Finish to Tom and Jerry, p. 175 (ed. 1872) . The bit of myrtle in his gig.
10. (old) .—A farthing. Formerly grig (q.v.) .
11. (American) .—See Policy Dealing.
Verb. (old) .—To hamstring.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. ”

“ Other droves advance slowly down the long avenue, past the second town-gate, and the first town-gate, and the sentry-box, and the bandbox, thawing the morning with their smoky breath as they come along. Plenty of room; plenty of time. Neither man nor beast is driven out of his wits by coaches, carts, waggons, omnibuses, gigs, chaises, phaetons, cabs, trucks, boys, whoopings, roarings, and multitudes. No tail-twisting is necessary—no iron pronging is necessary. There are no iron prongs here. The market for cattle is held as quietly as the market for calves. ”

“ For a short season, in the winter, the whole gang joined the club, which was kept for mill-boys and was supported by the corporation for which I worked. There were work-benches, checker-rooms, a poorly equipped gymnasium, seemingly always in the possession of the adults, and every now and then an entertainment occurred, when some imported entertainer with [148] talent would be invited to come from his or her aristocratic home—with a group of “slummers,” usually and divert us. ”

“ The best to which I could gain admission was a long barn-like edifice, with bunks or berths like those on board a ship, arranged along on either side with straw, hay, or leaves as a mattress, and a horsecloth as a coverlet. The gambling-houses were the most attractive. There was music gratis, and spirits without limitation for all who chose to play. I felt sure that I should make my fortune in that way. How was I to get enough to stake? I must work. I found no difficulty in obtaining employment as a labourer at high wages. ”

“ The whole was supported on four or six wheels so as to facilitate movement from point to point; and as the miracle plays were essentially peripatetic—within, at least, the bounds of a particular town, and sometimes beyond—this was a very necessary provision.
Each pageant had its company. The word "company" here is not exactly synonymous with "gild," for several gilds might combine for the object of maintaining a pageant and training and entertaining actors, and the composition of the company varied according to the wealth or poverty, zeal or indifference, of different gilds. ”

“ Grown ups a penny, childer ’arf price! Step up all! The band will play! ’Ere you are, now! Tickets over there!”
My tenth birthday marked the end of my boyish, merry play-life. Over its threshold I was to meet with and grasp the calloused hand of Labor. ”

“ I had watched the mill-boys, some of them not much older than myself—and I was only eleven—and I wanted to swagger up and down the alleys like them. They were lightly clad in undershirt and overalls, so that in their bared feet they could run without slipping on the hot floor. They were working for wages, too, and took home a pay envelope every Saturday. Just think of going home every Saturday, and throwing an envelope on the table with three dollars in it, and saying, nonchalantly, “Aunt, there’s my wages. Just fork over my thirty cents spending money. ”

“ One evening, when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the arrival of his patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane historian charged with unutterable names of incomprehensible peoples, of impossible descent, waging wars any number of years and syllables long, and carrying illimitable hosts and riches about, with the greatest ease, beyond the confines of geography--one evening the usual time passed by, and no patron appeared. ”

“ Why must a sedentary-pursuited Waiter be considered to be a judge of horseflesh, and to have a most tremendous interest in horse-training and racing? Yet it would be half our little incomes out of our pockets if we didn’t take on to have those sporting tastes. ”

“ First appear the stage carpenters, who are always seventy, and sometimes, when L'Africaine, for example, with its ship scene, is the opera, one hundred and ten strong. Then come stage upholsterers, whose sole duty is to lay carpets, hang curtains, etc.; gas-men, and a squad of firemen. Claqueurs, call-boys, property-men, dressers, coiffeurs, supernumeraries, and artists, follow. The supernumeraries number about one hundred; some are hired by the year, but the 'masses' are generally recruited at the last minute and are generally working-men who seek to add to their meagre earnings. ”

“ As driver of the chariot, I endure the constant apprehension of wrecking my company by the wayside. As assistant carpenter, when we can not find a stage it is my task to erect one. As bill-poster and license-procurer, treasurer and stage manager, my time is not so taken up, sir, as to preclude my going on and assuming a character. ”

“ If we can get one of the larger trays of stones we can get enough money on them to go to Salt Lake or Denver, and open a small gambling house where, while we can’t be entirely respectable, we can at least be secure. I am at a stage where I would like to quit. I don’t feel like going to work as a laborer at two dollars a day, or as a clerk for fifteen a week. ”

“ I’ve often been backed by the company to dance and play against another man, and I generally win. I’ve been in hotels, and danced to gentlemen, and made plenty of money at it. I do all manner of tricks, just to make ’em laugh—capering, or ‘hanky-panky,’ as I term it. I once had half-a-sovereign given to me, but I think it was a mistake, for he says, ‘Take that, and go on.’ I went home to clean myself, and had my trousers washed, and my shoes blacked, and went half-price to the theatre—the ‘Wic,’ I think it was—and paid my shilling, and went in as tidy as a gentleman. ”

“ Through the aid of several different city directories I secured the names of hundreds of saloon-keepers. As a class—outside of their own business, which I do not at all revere—they are a jolly, happy-go-lucky lot of people, who admire what has the appearance of a practical joke, are free with their money, and are on the best of terms with all the world and the rest of mankind. ”

“ Now, what a poor piece of mockery, of false tinsel and fringe and folly and pretence, is your stage-player beside one of these fellows! Who is going to sit three weary hours at the Haymarket, bored by the assumed plausibility of the actor, when the real, the actual, the positive thing that he so poorly simulates is to be met on the railroad, at the station, in the club, on the chain-pier, or the penny steamer? ”

“ No sooner had one cab set down a couple of ladies, than another cab drove up and set down another couple of ladies, and they all knew: not only one another, but the majority of the gentlemen into the bargain, which made it all as pleasant and lively as could be. ”

“ The system of paying the mechanic late on the Saturday night—and more particularly of paying a man his wages in a public-house—when he is tired with his day’s work, lures him to the tavern, and there the hours fly quickly enough beside the warm tap-room fire, so that by the time the wife comes for her husband’s wages, she finds a large portion of them gone in drink and the streets half cleared, thus the Sunday market is the only chance of getting the Sunday’s dinner. ”

“ When the regular hours of drinking approached, the workmen left their labour to play at cards, the loser "treating the shop's crew." In a large establishment a boy would be kept running with his jug nearly the whole time, the contents being freely shared amongst master, journeymen, boys, and numerous visitors. ”

“ All this the passengers pause a moment to contemplate, as one looks at a play at the theatre; then they hasten on and forget all about it. As for the labourers, they do not even raise their heads. It is no play for them, but deadly earnest. ”

“ A servant calls a coach or a chair in any of the principal streets, which attends at a minute’s warning, and carries one to any part of the town, within a mile and a half distance, for a shilling, but to a chair is paid one-third more; the coaches also will wait for eighteenpence the first hour, and a shilling every succeeding hour all day long; or you may hire a coach and a pair of horses all day, in or out of town, for ten shillings per day ”

“ For the class of adventurous runaways, the patterer’s, or, rather, the paper-working patterer’s life, with its alternations of town and country, fairs and hangings, the bustle of race-grounds and the stillness of a village, has great attractions. To a pattering and chaunting career, moreover, there is the stimulus of that love of approbation and of admiration, as strong among the often penniless professionals of the streets as on the boards of the opera house. ”

“ Accordingly, for the profit of the shareholders and that of the lower class of innkeepers, we should have wrestling matches, horse and boat races without number, and pot-houses and beer-shops would keep pace with these excitements and recreations, most of which might too easily be had elsewhere. ”

“ Waiters in white aprons dodge about among the dancers, taking orders for wine, beer and punch, and exciting our constant amazement that they do not get knocked down and trampled on. One of them approaches us and asks what we will take. Observe, he does not ask if we will take anything, for if you sit you must "consume" either drink or cigars. Your five cents paid at the door, you perceive, entitle you to neither a seat nor a dance. The constant drinking which goes on is the heaviest source of income of the establishment, after all. ”

“ I would go on board, with one of the niggers carrying my saddle- bags, and those sucker passengers would think I was a planter sure enough; so if a game was proposed I had no trouble to get into it, as all who play cards are looking for suckers that they know have money; and who in those old ante-bellum times had more money than a Southern planter? I have often stepped up to the bar as soon as I would get on board and treat every one within call, and when I would pay for the drinks I would pull out a roll that would make everybody look wild. ”