“Vnto this nest is another sort to be referred, more sturdie than the rest, which, hauing sound and perfect lims, doo yet, notwithstanding { xii} sometime counterfeit the possession of all sorts of diseases. Diuerse times in their apparell also[21] they will be like seruing men or laborers: oftentimes they can plaie the mariners, and seeke for ships which they neuer lost.[22] But, in fine, they are all theeues and caterpillers in the commonwealth, and, by the word of God not permitted to eat, sith they doo but licke the sweat from the true laborers’ browes, _and_ beereue the godlie poore of that which is due vnto them, to mainteine their excesse, consuming the charitie of well-disposed people bestowed vpon them, after a most wicked[23] _and_ detestable maner.
“It is not yet full threescore [24] yeares since this trade began: but how it hath prospered since that time, it is easie to iudge; for they are now supposed, of one sex and another, to amount vnto aboue 10,000 persons, as I haue heard reported. Moreouer, in counterfeiting the Egyptian roges, they haue deuised a language among themselues, which they name _Canting_ (but other pedlers French)—a speach compact thirtie yeares since of English, and a great number of od words of their owne deuising, without all order or reason: and yet such is it as none but themselues are able to vnderstand. The first deuiser thereof was hanged by the necke,—a iust reward, no doubt, for his deserts, and a [Sidenote: Thomas Harman.] common end to all of that profession. A gentleman, also, of late hath taken great paines to search out the secret practises of this vngratious rabble. And among other things he setteth downe and describeth [25]§three _and_ twentie§ sorts of them, whose names it shall not be amisse to remember, wherby ech one may [26]*take occasion to read and know as also by his industrie* what wicked people they are, and what villanie remaineth in them.
“The seuerall disorders and degrees amongst our idle vagabonds:—
1. Rufflers. 2. Vprightmen. 3. Hookers or Anglers. 4. Roges. 5. Wild Roges. 6. Priggers of Prancers. 7. Palliards. 8. Fraters. 9. Abrams. 10. Freshwater mariners, or Whipiacks. 11. Dummerers. 12. Drunken tinkers. 13. Swadders, or Pedlers. 14. Iarkemen, or Patricoes.