Finally got to post this. The night before Larry was Stretched can be found in the repertoire of Frank Harte, or the appendix of Colm O'Lochlain's 'Irish Street Ballads' It is written in English and Cant and was available on Ballad sheets. I am not sure of the date. It had little if anything to do with the list of alleged authors quoted above. The Cant word for gallows is Numbing Chit, not Dublin Chit. For a full list of Cant words try Frances Grose and 'The Dictionary of the vulgar tongue'. Somewhat controversial, and probably historically inaccurate to many degrees, but a good sourcebook for eighteenth and early nineteenth-century slang. Available online, or in paperback.
|