Salt junk

navy salt beef. See OLD HORSE . Saltee , a penny. Pence, ., are thus reckoned:— | Oney saltee, a penny, from the Italian, | UNO SOLDO. | | Dooe saltee, twopence | DUE SOLDI. | | Tray saltee, threepence | TRE SOLDI. | | Quarterer saltee, fourpence | QUATTRO SOLDI. | | Chinker saltee, fivepence | CINQUE SOLDI. | | Say saltee, sixpence | SEI SOLDI. | | Say oney saltee, or SETTER SALTEE, | | sevenpence | SETTE SOLDI. | | Say dooe saltee, or OTTER SALTEE, | | eightpence | OTTO SOLDI. | | Say tray saltee, or NOBBA SALTEE, | | ninepence | NOVE SOLDI. | | Say quarterer saltee, or DACHA | | SALTEE, tenpence | DIECI SOLDI. | | Say chinker saltee, or DACHA | | ONEY SALTEE, eleven pence | DIECI UNO SOLDI, . | | Oney beong, one shilling. | | A beong say saltee, one shilling and sixpence. | | Dooe beong say saltee, or MADZA CAROON, half-a-crown, or two shillings and sixpence. | ⁂ This curious list of numerals in use among the London street folk is, strange as it may seem, derived from the Lingua Franca , or bastard Italian , of the Mediterranean seaports, of which other examples may be found in the pages of this Dictionary. Saltee , the cant term used by the costermongers and others for a penny, is no other than the Italian , SOLDO (plural, SOLDI ), and the numerals—as may be seen by the Italian equivalents—are a tolerably close imitation of the originals. After the number six, a curious variation occurs, which is peculiar to the London cant, seven being reckoned as SAY ONEY , six-one , SAY DOOE , six-two = 8, and so on. Dacha is perhaps from the Greek δέκα, ten, which, in the Constant i no pol it an Lingua Franca , is likely enough to have been substituted for the Italian . Madza is clearly the Italian MEZZA . The origin of BEONG has not yet been discovered, unle it be the French BIEN , the application of which to a shilling is not so evident; but amongst costermongers and other street folk it is quite immaterial what foreign tongue contributes to their secret language. Providing the terms are unknown to the police and the public generally, they care not a rush whether the polite French, the gay Spaniards, or the cloudy Germans help to swell their vocabulary. The numbers of low foreigners, however, dragging out a miserable existence in our crowded neighbourhoods, organ grinders and image sellers, foreign seamen from the ve els in the river, and our own connexion with Malta and the Ionian Isles, may explain, to a certain extent, the phenomenon of these Southern phrases in the mouths of costers and tramps. Profe or Ascoli, in his Studj Critici , absurdly enough derives these words from the ancient commercial importance of Italian settlers in England, when they gave a name to Lombard Street!