A Caveat for Common Cursitors

Much of A Caveat for Common Cursitors in its original is online at google books.

Thomas Harman, lover of alliteration, wrote a pamphlet called A Caveat for Common Cursitors [a warning for common vagabonds, or beggars], in which he reveals the "abominable, wicked, and detestable behaviour of these rowsey, ragged rabblement of rakehells." Source.

Typical of this type of Elizabethan para-literature delightedly cataloguing thieves cant in the guise of moral condemnation, one suspects the source every so often of being more ingenious than veracious.

Harman's Hellish Hierarchy:
Ruffler — A returned soldier who refuses to beg, but bullies, robs and steals.

Upright-man — Previously a servant, who is "skilful in picking, rifling, and filching," and who will bully lesser vagabonds. They are too proud to travel with their women ("morts").

Hooker or Angler —  Carries a pole with a hook on the end, to snatch items through windows when people are asleep.

Rogue — Less skilled than the hooker, and more timid, the rogue is a more conventional thief.

Prigger — A horse thief.

Abram-man — Pretends to be mad, and to have been in the hospital for the insane, Bedlam.

Counterfeit crank — Pretends to have the "falling sickness," epilepsy.

Dummerer — Pretends to be dumb, if not deaf. According to Harman, "the most part of these are Welshmen."


Female Beggars
Bawdy-basket — Carries a basket with trinkets, and uses it to get on good terms with the maidservants in a gentleman's house, from which they then steal.

Autem-mort —  Actually married , often to an upright-man; she will take her children with her.

Walking mort —  Not married, and therefore vulnerable to other beggars, especially men: "Many of these had, and have children. When they get aught, either with begging, bitchery, or bribery, they are quickly shaken out of all by the upright-men."

Doxy — "These doxies be broken and spoiled of their maidenheads by the upright-men," and then become prostitutes.

Dell — "[A] young wench, able for generation, and not yet known or broken by the upright-man."

Kinchin mort and kinchin co — The kinchin mort is a girl, the kinchin co a boy. Even for these Harman has no pity, for he comments,"soon ripe, soon rotten."