Cantering Through Cant (12)

Groups and associations, particularly the rank and file of the military, are keen to impose their own forms of discipline on their colleagues. Francis Grose’s A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) is full of examples. Here are just three.

Cob or cobbing Grose describes as “a punishment used by the seamen for petty offences, or irregularities, amongst themselves; it consists of bastinadoing the offenders on the posteriors with a cobbling stick, or pipe staff; the number usually inflicted is a dozen”. The first blow is followed by the cry of Watch, at which point, for fear of punishment, all present must remove their hats. The last stroke, which is always the hardest, Grose informs us, is known as the purse.

Soldiers also practiced this rather barbaric form of punishment but did not include the watch or purse in the number of strokes to be inflicted. These were additional or, as our compiler notes, given “free, gratis and for nothing”. The practice was also used by schoolboys to punish anyone who had the audacity to enter their halls of learning while still wearing a hat.

Cold burning was “a punishment inflicted by private soldiers on their colleagues for trifling offences, or breaches of their mess laws”. The unfortunate victim would be ties to the wall with his arm raised and the master of ceremonies would proceed to pour a jug of cold water down the sleeve, patting it all the while, to ensure that it travelled down his body before exiting from the knees of his breeches.

Indolence in the form of a marked reluctance to leave the bed is not a modern trait. Grose records that cold pig consisted of stripping the bedclothes from the bed and pouring a jug of cold water over the idler.