Ox-Boy

A young fellow who takes care of oxen. A cowboy.

"The oxboy as ill is as he,
Or worser, if worse may be found."

Thomas Tusser, Five hundreth pointes of good husbandrie (1573)

Roundsman

A laborer in need of help, who was sent round from one farmer to another for employment, partly at the expense of the farmer and partly at the cost of the village. Also, a policeman who patrols a city at night, making the rounds.

"Do you ever get aground on the alligators now?"
"Oh, no! it hasn't happened for years."
"Well, then, why do they still keep the alligator-boats in service?"
"Just for police duty--nothing more. They merely go up and down now and then. The present generation of alligators know them as easy as a burglar knows a roundsman; when they see one coming, they break camp and go for the woods."

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Henchman

A groom. An attendant. A right-hand man.

"The Foster-brother, having the same Education as the young Chief, may besides that become his Hanchman. This Officer is a Sort of Secretary, and is to be ready upon all Occasions, to venture his Life in defence of his Master; and at Drinking-bouts he stands behind his Seat, at his Haunch, from whence his Title is derived, and watches the Conversation."

Edward Burt, Letters from a gentleman in the north of Scotland (1730).

Stevedore

Someone who loads or unloads commercial ships' cargo. An overseer of dockworkers.

“I could see exactly what must have happened. Insert a liberal dose of mixed spirits in a normally abstemious man, and he becomes a force. He does not stand round, twiddling his fingers and stammering. He acts. I had no doubt that Gussie must have reached for the Bassett and clasped her to him like a stevedore handling a sack of coals. And one could readily envisage the effect of that sort of thing on a girl of romantic mind.”

P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves (1934).

Drudge

Someone who performs servile, monotonous, and difficult work.
A hack.

"Up, and pleased mightily with what my poor wife hath been doing these eight or ten days with her owne hands like a drudge, in fitting the new hangings of our bedchamber of blue and putting the old red ones into my dressing-room; and so by coach to White Hall."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (January 26, 1666)

Horse Traders

Someone who makes a living buying, selling, and swapping horses.

“Mr. Knox accompanied me into the house and had a drink. He was a fair, spare young man, who looked like a stableboy among gentlemen, and a gentleman among stableboys. He belonged to a clan that cropped up in every grade of society in the county, from Sir Valentine Knox of Castle Knox down to the auctioneer Knox, who bore the attractive title of Larry the Liar. So far as I could judge, Florence McCarthy of that ilk occupied a shifting position about midway in the tribe. I had met him at dinner at Sir Valentine’s, I had heard of him at an illicit auction, held by Larry the Liar, of brandy stolen from a wreck. They were ‘Black Protestants,’ all of them, in virtue of their descent from a godly soldier of Cromwell, and all were prepared at any moment of the day or night to sell a horse.”

E. OE. Somerville and Martin Ross, The Irish R.M. (1899-1915)

Stokers

The person responsible for putting fresh fuel in a furnace and keeping it burning.

"Of a famous brewer my purpose is to tell,
the noble Stoker Okey that doth the rest excel."

J. Okie's Lament (1660).

School Masters

Someone who teaches in a school or is the principal or director of a school.

"Tyrannical, impatient, hair-brain schoolmasters, aridi magistri [dry masters], as Fabius terms them, Ajaces flagelliferi [flogging bullies], are in this kind as bad as hangmen and executioners; they make many children endure a martyrdom all the while they are at school; with bad diet, if they board in their houses, too much severity and ill-usage, they quite pervert their temperature of body and mind: still chiding, railing, frowning, lashing, tasking, keeping, that they are fracti animis, moped many times, weary of their lives, nimia severitate deficiunt et desperant [through harsh treatment they become dull and dispirited], and think no slavery in the world (as once I did myself) like to that of a grammar scholar."

Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621).

Hawkers

Someone who tends or trains hawks. A falconer.

"The hawkers and fowlers
when they have caught the fowl,
divide the bootie with the hawks."

Philemon Holland, Pliny's historie of the world,
commmonly called the natural historie (1601).

African Wheat, Roman Bread

Corn prefect: An official in ancient Rome who supervised the corn market and the pricing of corn, as well as, it seems, the wheat supply.

"However, it was over the crucial occupations that the state first appears to have exercised its control: those industries which helped to ensure provisions for the army and the large cities, especially Rome. And it is in Rome that we can study in the greatest detail this supervision of the occupations connected with the food supply. The wheat supply for the city of Rome was the major concern. Although there was a free market for the surpluses which Italian landowners put up for sale, only small quantities were involved and the praefectus annonae, or corn prefect, merely kept an eye on the prices. In contrast, wheat, which was collected by the treasury and officially distributed, was strictly controlled from its importation until it was baked into bread. The emperor fixed the 'wheat ration' to be sent to Rome each year. Most of it came from Africa, and from the time that it was taken aboard ship in an African port it was the object of unrelenting security precautions. The official first responsible was the prefect of the African corn. He supervised its being handed over to the shippers charged with the carriage to Ostia. These navicularii, members of a guild, were kept under double supervision: during the crossing they were responsible to the praetorian prefect and the prefect of the African annona. Upon their arrival at Ostia or at Porto, they passed to the control of the Roman corn prefect and the urban prefect. They were required to make the shortest possible crossing and were not allowed to stop anywhere, on pain of death or deportation. They were held responsible for delivery and they paid for any loss out of their own pockets. A register of the Roman navicularii was kept by the urban prefect, which contained a list of the estates owned by the guild, whose sixty richest members each year contributed towards the upkeep of the public baths."

Claude Mossé, The Ancient World of Work

[translated by Janet Lloyd], 1969.

Men-at-arms, Francs-archers, and Provost-marshals

"All the country parishes in Anjou were constrained to raise men-at-arms commonly called francs-archers, which was a grievous burden; for each parish furnished one man who they had to fit out with cap, plumes, doublet, leather collar, hosen and shoes, with such harness and staff as the captain should command. Albeit they were raised, fed, clothed and armed at so great a cost, yet were they unprofitable both to prince and to people; for they began to rise up against the common folk, desiring to live at ease without further labouring at their wonted trades, and to pillage in the fields as they would have done in an enemy's country; wherefore several of them were taken and given into the hands of the provost-marshals, ending their lives on the gibbet which they had so well deserved."

Jean de Bourdigne, Chronicle of Anjou (1521).

Fakirs

In Moslem countries, a religious mendicant.

“We strolled in the music hall district, where the sky lines of the row of buildings are wondrously near to each other, and the crowded little thoroughfares resemble the eternal ‘Street Scene in Cairo.’ There was an endless strumming and tooting and shrill piping in clamor and chaos, while at all times there were interspersed the sharp cracking sounds from the shooting galleries and the coaxing calls of innumerable fakirs. At the stand where one can throw at wooden cats and negro heads and be in danger of winning cigars, a self reliant youth bought a whole armful of base balls, and missed with each one. Everybody grinned. A heavily built man openly jeered. ‘You couldn’t hit a church!’ ‘Couldn’t I?’ retorted the young man, bitterly. Near them three bad men were engaged in an intense conversation. The fragment of a sentence suddenly dominated the noises. ‘He’s got money to burn.’”

Stephen Crane, Other Writings About New York, “Coney Island’s Failing Days” (1894-6).

Extortioners

Someone who obtains anything from a person through an illegal use of fear, whether by force, threats, or any other undue exercise of power (Webster's).

"I lodged in a dreary overpriced inn crouching in the lee of the Towers. I got up at dawn after many bad dreams, and paid the extortioner for bed and breakfast and inaccurate directions as to the way I should take, and set forth afoot to find Otherhord, an ancient Fastness not far from Rer. I was lost within fifty yards of the inn."

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969).

Hookers

A thief who used a hook to snatch articles out of apartments or houses with open, unattended windows. Handy employment for shepherds lost in the big city without a flock to tend to.

“The Courber, which the common people call the Hooker with a Curb or hook, doth pull out of a window any loose linen cloth, apparel, or else any other household stuffe.”

Robert Greene, Art of Conny-catching (1592).

Scale of 1 to 10: 3.

Pearl Divers

“’I suppose I shouldn’t have let things get out of hand like this. Last week I kept warning myself to hurry up and do something, but I didn’t pull myself together for some reason, and then Punt threw me out and there I was.’ He turned his hand inward in a gesture of self-presentation. ‘The way I look, pearl diving is about the only work I could get.’”

Saul Bellow, The Victim (1947).

The Thespian Spring

A tragedian, named for Thespis, the traditional father of Greek tragedy; an actor or actress.

“Nectar, Ambrosia, and the Thespian Spring, May all avaunt, for Money is the Thing.”

Edward Cocker, Morals, or the muses spring-garden (1675).

Mr. Customs Man

"Take an example from the bottom, in a class where the temptations are large, take the customs man: there are perhaps those who might receive a small tip on some insignificant occasion, but never for anything that gives the least suspicion of fraud. --Do you want to know, now, how much he's paid for this unappreciated work? six hundred francs, a little more than thirty cents a day; let's add to this the nights which are paid nothing; he passes, for every two nights one, on the border, on the coast, without shelter except for his coat, exposed to the attack of smugglers, to tempests, which, from the cliff, sometimes carry him into the sea. It's there, at this outpost, that his wife brings him his meager repast; because he is married, he has children, and, to nourish four or five people, he has around thirty cents. A young baker in Paris makes more than two customs men, more than a lieutenant in the infantry, more than that magistrate, more than most professors; he makes as much as six school principals!"

("Prenez en bas, dans une classe où les tentations sont grandes, prenez le douanier: il en est peut-être qui recevraient un léger pourboire dans une occasion insignifiante, mais jamais pour ce qui donne le moindre soupcon de fraude. --Voulez-vous savoir, maintenant, combien il a pour ce service ingrat? six cents francs, un peu plus de trente sous par jour; ajoutons-y les nuits qui ne sont point payées; il passe, de deux nuits l'une, sur la frontière, sur la côte, sans abri que son manteau, exposé à l'attaque du contrebandier, au vent de la tempête, qui, de la falaise, parfois l'emporte en mer. C'est là, par cette grève, que sa femme lui apporte son maigre repas; car il est marié, il a des enfants, et, pour nourrir quatre ou cinq personnes, il a à peu près trente sous. Un garcon boulanger à Paris gagne plus que deux douaniers, plus qu'un lieutenant d'infanterie, plus que tel magistrat, plus que la plupart des professeurs; il gagne autant que six maîtres d'école!")

Jules Michelet, The People (1846).

Fixers

Someone who repairs things.

“They taught me a trade and apprenticed me five minutes after age ten—not that I regret it. So I work—let’s call it work—with my hands, and some call me ‘common’ but the truth of it is few people know who is really common. As for those that look like they got class, take another look. Viskover, the Nogid, is in my eyes a common man. All he’s got is rubles and when he opens his mouth you can hear them clink.”

Bernard Malamud, The Fixer (1966).

Fish Wives

"Their chatt'ring makes a louder din
than fish-wives over a cup of gin."

Jonathan Swift, Truly Modern Lady (1728).

Little Whippersnappers

Whipping-boy: A boy educated alongside a young prince, who is flogged in the prince's stead, when the prince does something that was thought to deserve flogging.

"The choice of agents is a difficult matter, for you have to choose persons for whose faults you are to be punished; to whom you are to be the whipping-boy."

Sir Arthur Helps, Essays, On Choice of Agents (1841).

Scale of 1 to 10: 2.

Slaughterers

A butcher.

"Thou do'st then wrong me, as ye slaughterer doth,
Which giveth many Wounds, when one will kill."

William Shakespeare, Henry VI (1591).

Lighthouse Keepers

The person who lives in and maintains a lighthouse.

"Light-house keeper... by far the most life-weary looking mortal I ever saw."

Thomas Carlyle, Reminiscences (1866).

Muslin Makers

Someone who makes delicately woven cotton fabrics, including those used for women's dresses and curtains.

"That was a pretty bit of muslin hanging on your arm--who was she?"

William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis (1850).

Mesmerists

Someone who hypnotizes people, as entertainment or therapy.

"Mesmerism: Nice conversational topic, useful too in procuring you mistresses."

Gustave Flaubert, Dictionary of Platitudes (1880).

[Translation by J. I. Rodale (1954).]

Plutarch on Property Speculators

"It is true that some rich slave-owners did have the idea of employing their slaves in specialised crafts in some branch of production: according to Plutarch, Crassus possessed 500 slaves who were carpenters and masons, and he exploited their labour to indulge in various property speculations, buying at very low prices the houses which were constantly being damaged by fire in Rome, and building on their sites new houses from which he derived large profits."

Claude Mossé, The Ancient World of Work (1969)

[Translated by Janet Lloyd].

Rascally Printers

A person who prints cloth, paper, books. A coiner. The owner of a publishing business. A person who works there.

"The city of Venice, so famous on many counts, is especially celebrated owing to the Aldine Press, and so whatever in the way of books is distributed from there to other countries finds a market for the sake of its place of origin alone. But this inducement is so misused by rascally printers, that from no other country do we get publications so shamelessly incorrect, and those not just of anybody's works, but of the greatest, Aristotle, for instance, and Cicero and Quintilian, to say nothing of the Holy Scriptures. The law sees to it that no one may make shoes or boxes without the approbation of the masters' guild, and yet authors of this stature, on whose works even religion depends, are handed out to the public by people so illiterate that they cannot even read, or so lazy that they don't trouble to go over what has been printed, or so mean that they would rather let a good book get choked up with six thousand mistakes than spend a few coins on paying someone to supervise the proof-reading."

Erasmus, Adages ("Festina lente") (1508).

[translated by Margaret Mann Phillips (1967)].

Glass-blowers

"I have not yet crossed the threshold. I am outside, between the Cyclopean blocks which flank the entrance to the shaft. I am still the man I might have become, assuming every benefit of civilization to be showered upon me with regal indulgence. I am gathering all of this potential civilized muck into a hard, tiny knot of understanding. I am blown to the maximum, like a great bowl of molten glass hanging from the stem of a glass-blower. Make me into any fantastic shape, use all your art, exhaust your lung-power--still I shall only be a thing fabricated, at the best a beautiful cultured soul. I know this, I despise it. I stand outside full-blown, the most beautiful, the most cultured, the most marvellously fabricated soul on earth. I am going to put my foot over the threshold--now. I do so. I hear nothing. I am not even there to hear myself shattering into a billion splintered smithereens. Only Agamemnon is there."

Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi (1941).

Poachers

Someone who kills or catches game on someone else's land.

“A keeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and a poacher a keeper turned inside out.”

Charles Kingsley, The water-babies (1863).

Dragomen

A guide and interpreter in Arabic, Turkish, or Persian speaking countries.

"Till I cried out, you prove yourself so able,
Pity! you was not Druggerman at Babel!
For had they found a linguist half so good,
I make no question that the Tower had stood."

Alexander Pope, Satires of Dr. Donne versified (1735).

Canons

A clergyman living with others in a clergy house or cathedral, who follows the canons or rules of the church.

"This practice of the canonica vita or canonical life began to prevail in the 8th century; in the 11th century it was, in some churches, reformed by the adoption of a rule (based upon a practice mentioned by St. Augustine) that clergymen so living together should renounce private property: those who embraced this rule were known as Augustinian (Augustin) or regular, the others were secular canons." (OED).

"By 1441 Gloucester's authority in the State was wellnigh ended, but some historians believe his enemies used the charge against his wife to deliver the coup de grace. As a preliminary, charges were brought against two men, Roger Bolingbroke, an Oxford priest, 'a great and cunning man in astronomy', and Thomas Southwell, canon of St. Stephen's, Westminster, who were accused of making a wax image of Henry VI, which they exposed to a slow fire, and by aid of the devil, as the image melted, so the life of the king would fade away. Bolingbroke, on a July Sunday in 1441, was placed on a high scaffold outside St. Paul's, arrayed in his magic garments. About him were the writings, the images of wax, silver and metal, together with other instruments of his craft. He had a paper crown and there before the multitude swore to abuse his false craft of the devil. From there he was taken to the Tower to await further judgment."

Six Medieval Men & Women, "Henry, Duke of Gloucester," H. S. Bennett (1955).

Poets and Philosophers

"Women make us poets, children make us philosophers."

--Malcolm de Chazal.

Buskers

A mendicant singer, artist, or actor who performs in the market, on sidewalks, in train stations.

"A busker is often a musician of no small talent who performs in public for alms, playing without formal engagement or concert hall, for a musically disinclined audience that pretends not to be able to afford the price of admission."

--R. Voorhees.

Assassins

Since an act of assassination often borders on the suicidal, murderers-for-hire have frequently been drug addled, as the term "assassin" attests. Having evolved from the Arabic word "hashshashshin," meaning “hashish eater,” it is clear that even when the Moslems were fighting the Christians during the Crusades, murder came easier to someone who was not in a normal state of mind. If you don't really know what you're doing and no longer appreciate what dangers await you, there's nothing to fear, right? Natural human misgivings give way to a drug-stoked, drug-benumbed resolve.

“It was easier to move the hearts of the multitude than to avoid the single assassin.”

Tacitus, Histories (100 AD).

(See Berserk.)

Scale of 1 to 10: 1. Risks high, pay low, history usually unsympathetic.

Steamboatmen

"When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that ever came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained."

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Queriers

A chimney sweep who asks for work.

"The knuller is also styled a "querier," a name derived from his making inquiries at the doors of the houses as to whether his services are required."

Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London poor (1861).

Porters

Someone who has charge of a door or gate, especially at the entrance of a fortified town or of a castle or other large building. A person whose employment is to carry someone else's burdens.

“Like a porter in a great house, ever nearest the door, but seldomest abroad.”

John Donne, Letters (1631).

Two False Knaves

A boy or lad who works as a servant.

"Two false knaves need no broker, men say."

John Heywood, A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the proverbes in the Englishe tongue (1546).

A Royal-Scamp

A highway robber. A "royal-scamp" is one who robs civilly.

"Scamp, a cheat, a swindler; often used as to one who contracts debt, and runs off without paying it."

John Jamieson, An etymological dictionary of the Scottish language (1808).

Foucault on Prison Warders

“In 1836, a correspondent wrote to La Phalange: ‘Moralists, philosophers, legislators, flatterers of civilization, this is the plan of your Paris, neatly ordered and arranged, here is the improved plan in which all like things are gathered together. At the centre, and within a first enclosure: hospitals for all diseases, almshouses for all types of poverty, madhouses, prisons, convict-prisons for men, women and children. Around the first enclosure, barracks, courtrooms, police stations, houses for prison warders, scaffolds, houses for the executioner and his assistants. At the four corners, the Chamber of Deputies, the Chamber of Peers, the Institute and the Royal Palace. Outside, there are the various services that supply the central enclosure, commerce, with its swindlers and its bankruptcies; industry and its furious struggles; the press, with its sophisms; the gambling dens; prostitution, the people dying of hunger or wallowing in debauchery, always ready to lend an ear to the voice of the Genius of Revolutions; the heartless rich... Lastly the ruthless war of all against all’ (La Phalange, 10 August 1836).”

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975)

[Translated by Alan Sheridan]