Thank you Lighter and Snuffy for work on "hooker."
Like Fred, I've been concerned with the word in this song as a red flag that the song might be too recent. And therefore more likely a counterfeit. That's especially so since the obviously fairly late version retains the "pills of white mercury," generally dropped from later versions.

Of course, I prefer to believe it's an old one, generally suppressed from scholarly reporting, as so many were, and that Bad Girl's Lament was the parlor Bowdlerization.

I was remiss not looking up the word - I'm satisfied that 1835 or 45 is old enough. (Though that proves nothing but I'm happy.)

Good work.