The Bowery: The Strange History of New York's Oldest Street

by Stephen Paul DeVil

Toleration, however, didn’t mean approval of Rip’s freeloading career, and the women would admonish their own children not to turn into another Rip Schallyon. In time, it was said, Rip would lend his name to the English language as the original “rapscallion.”

An ale stake jutting out over the door, usually a broom handle, was an English tradition dating from the Middle Ages; when a signboard was eventually hung from the stake, it became the origin of the familiar pub sign.