Periwiggmaker

Someone who weaves wigs for those in need of something more on the topside.

"Comes Chapman, the periwigg-maker, and upon my liking it, without more ado I went up, and there he cut off my haire, which went a little to my heart at present to part with it; but it being over and my perigwigg on, I paid him 3 pounds for it, and away went he with my owne haire to make up another of, and I by and by, after I had caused all my maids to look upon it; and they conclude it do become me, though Jane was mightily troubled for my parting of my own haire, and so was Besse. I went abroad to the coffee house, and coming back went to Sir Wm. Pen and there sat with him till late at night. Sir Wm. Pen observed mightily and discoursed much upon my cutting off my haire, as he do of every thing that concerns me, but it is over, and so I perceive after a day or two it will be no great matter."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (November 3, 1663).

Upton Sinclair on Lobbyists

Someone paid to petition the government on someone else’s behalf.

“I know that we began in a competitive world, and I have no quarrel with the past. I am looking toward the future; and I say that when men compete with one another for wealth they produce poverty for themselves. They duplicate plants, they over-produce, they adulterate goods, they lie about their products, they spy upon one another, they buy special favors from government officials, they subsidize lobbyists and politicians, and build up political machines, and ultimately undermine the practice of Democracy. For all such forms of waste the consumer pays.”

Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (1934).

Twain on Keelboatmen

"The river's earliest commerce was in great barges--keelboats, broadhorns. They floated and sailed from the upper rivers to New Orleans, changed cargoes there, and were tediously warped and poled back by hand. A voyage down and back sometimes occupied nine months. In time this commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with sailor-like stoicism; heavy drinkers, coarse frolickers in moral sties like the Natchez-under-the-hill of that day, heavy fighters, reckless fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane, prodigal of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy, faithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous. By and by the steamboat intruded. Then, for fifteen or twenty years, these men continued to run their keelboats down-stream, and the steamers did all of the up-stream business, the keelboatmen selling their boats in New Orleans, and returning home as deck-passengers in the steamers. But after a while the steamboats so increased in number and in speed that they were able to absorb the entire commerce; and then keelboating died a permanent death."

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Smelter

Someone whose work is to extract metal from ore by melting it.

"The most important were the metal trades, which showed the greater degree of division of labour and specialisation. In Rome itself, we hear of pattern-makers (figuratores), smelters (fusores), turners (tritores), metal-chasers (crustarii), gilders (auratores), and among the jewellers there were specialist silversmiths and goldsmiths. Armour was manufactured at Rome, but also in Mantua, Brundisium, Tarentum, and Capua. The fabri aerarii, or bronze-workers, made table-ware with relief decoration, pots, jugs, chafing-dishes, tripods, beds, lamps, weights, scales and so on. There were also a large number of fabri ferrarii or iron-workers in Rome, Minturnae, Rhegium and Syracuse."

Claude Mossé, The Ancient World of Work (1969)

[Translated by Janet Lloyd].

Pastryman

A baker who specializes in such confections.

"The Pastryman, commonly known by the Name of the Colly-Molly-Puff."

Joseph Addison, The Spectator (1711).

Compiler

Someone who produces books by compiling information, often as distinct from an original author.

"The authorship or compilership of a dictionary is, indeed, a question like that of the identity of the darned and redarned stockings with the original pair."

The Spectator (1867).

Fewterer

Someone who keeps greyhounds. A dog-keeper.

"A dry nurse to his coughs,

a fewterer to such a nasty fellow."

John Fletcher, The Woman's Prize (1625).

Officer

Someone who holds a position of command in an army or navy.

"But reverses and successes seemed equally to kindle in the troops the one desire of murdering their officers."

Tacitus, Histories (100 AD).

Buyers and Beggars

Someone whose job is to purchase goods or supplies with someone else's money.

"He came here as a bier, not as a beggar."

Raphael Holinshed, The first (laste) volume of the chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande (1577).

Errant Panegyrists

Someone who writes or utters panegyrics. An encomiast.

"Panegyrists, Errant Knights!

That whitewash one as grim'd as Nero,

and make him shine abroad--an hero."

William H. Ireland, Scribbleomania; or the printer's devil's polichronicon, a poem (1815).

Potions and Motions

"Shall I lose my Doctor? No--He gives me the potions and the motions."

Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (1598).

Stallers up and Knuckling Gentlemen

Someone who works in league with a pickpocket.

"The stallers up are gratified with such part of the gains acquired as the liberality of the knuckling gentlemen may prompt them to bestow."

James Hardy Vaux, A new and comprehensive vocabulary of the flash language (1812).

Sibyl

Various women in Antiquity who were thought to have the ability to prophesy or predict the future.

"For not every form of insanity is a disaster, or Horace would not have asked, 'Or is it fond insanity deceiving me?' And Plato would not have counted the frenzy of poets, seers, and lovers amongst life's chief blessings, nor would the sybil have called the great undertaking of Aeneas insane. The nature of insanity is surely twofold. One kind is sent from hell by the vengeful furies whenever they let loose their snakes and assail the hearts of men with lust for war, insatiable thirst for gold, the disgrace of forbidden love, parricide, incest, sacrilege, or some other sort of evil, or when they pursue the guilty, conscience-stricken soul with their avenging spirits and flaming brands of terror. The other is quite different, desirable above everything, and is known to come from me [folly]. It occurs whenever some happy mental aberration frees the soul from its anxious cares and at the same time restores it by the addition of manifold delights. This is the sort of delusion Cicero longs for as a great gift of the gods in a letter to Atticus, for it would have the power to free him from awareness of his great trouble. Horace's Argive too was on to the right thing. His insanity was only sufficient to keep him sitting whole days alone in the theatre, laughing and clapping and enjoying himself because he believed marvelous plays were being acted on the stage, when in fact there was nothing at all."

Erasmus, Praise of Folly, (1509)

[translated by Betty Radice, notes by A. H. T. Levi (1993)].

Snake Charmer

A public entertainer who exhibits his professed ability to charm or fascinate venomous snakes (Webster's).

"The use of the Pamboo-Kaloo, or snake-stone, as a remedy in cases of wounds by venomous serpents, has probably been communicated to the Singhalese by the itinerant snake-charmers who resort to the island from the Coast of Coromandel; and more than one well-authenticated instance of its successful application has been told to me by persons who had been eye-witnesses."

Sir James Emerson Tennent, Ceylon (1860).

Kemp

A formidable warrior or athlete. A professional fighter, wrestler, etc.

"In starkest fight, where kemp to kemp, Reel headlong to the grave."

William Motherwell, Poems, narrative and lyrical (1832).

Professor of Black Magic

“Styopa dialed the number of the financial manager of the Variety Theater, Rimsky. Styopa’s position was delicate: to begin with the foreigner might take offense at Styopa’s attempt to verify his words after he had shown the contract; besides it was difficult to speak to the financial manager. After all, one could not say, ‘Tell me, did I sign a contract yesterday with a professor of black magic for thirty-five thousand rubles?’ No, such a question would not do!”

Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (1928-40).

Lector

A ceremonial reader of scripture or sacred text.

"He was beside himself. The crisis was real, that much was clear. And what could be done to save her? New lectors came for the matins, and the abbot, who had been present through the night, started up at the fresh resonance and began intoning mystical formulas. His voice was hoarse with age, but it seemed to have in it a store of grace that was enough to bring hope even to this despairing household."

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (10th Century).

Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

Twain on Missionaries and Whiskey

A person who travels to other countries to propogate belief in a specific religious faith.

"How solemn and beautiful is the thought that the earliest pioneer of civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat, never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never the missionary--but always whisky! Such is the case. Look history over; you will see. The missionary comes after the whisky--I mean he arrives after the whisky has arrived; next comes the poor immigrant, with ax and hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous rush; next, the gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their kindred in sin of both sexes; and next the smart chap who has bought up an old grant and covers all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilance committee brings the undertaker. All these interests bring the newspaper; the newpaper starts up politics and a railroad; all hands turn to and build a church and a jail--and behold! civilization is established forever in the land."

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Horace on Agents

Someone entrusted to act for another.

"With the revenue coming your way in Sicily, Iccius,

As Agrippa's agent, you have only to handle it right:

Jove himself couldn't shower you better with gold.

So stop complaining! The man is certainly not poor

Who has everything that he needs. A king's own ransom

Can't add a bit more, if your stomach and lungs

And feet are all right."

Horace, Epistle to Iccius (20 B.C.)

Ordinary

A chaplain at Newgate prison in London who was responsible for readying condemned men or women for execution.

Mrs. Millamant: “Well, an illiterate man’s my aversion: I wonder at the impudence of any illiterate man to offer to make love.”

Witwoud: “That I confess I wonder at too.”

Mrs. Millimant: “Ah! to marry an ignorant that can hardly read or write.”

Petulant: “Why should a man be any further from being married, though he can’t read, than he is from being hanged? The ordinary’s paid for setting the psalm, and the parish priest for reading the ceremony. And for the rest which is to follow in both cases, a man may do it without book – so all’s one for that.”

William Congreve, The Way of the World (1700).

Dickens on Parliamentarians

A member of the British Parliament. A politician ensconced in some legislative body.

"Time hustled him into a little noisy and rather dirty machinery, in a by-corner, and made him Member of Parliament for Coketown: one of the respected members for ounce weights and measures, one of the representatives of the multiplication table, one of the deaf honourable gentlemen, dumb honourable gentlemen, blind honourable gentlemen, lame honourable gentlemen, dead honourable gentlemen, to every other consideration. Else wherefore live we in a Christian land, eighteen hundred and odd years after our Master?"

Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854).

Shyster

An unscrupulous lawyer.

“Rush Madder was a shyster in the Quorn Building. An ambulance chaser, a small-time fixer, an alibi builder-upper, anything that smelled a little and paid a little more. I hadn’t heard of him in conection with any big operations like burning people’s feet.”

Raymond Chandler, Goldfish (1939).

Erasmus on Monks

(from the Greek word for "solitary"). A member of a religious brotherhood who lives in a monastery and follows the particular discipline of his order.

"I don't believe any life would be more wretched than theirs if I [folly] didn't come to their aid in many ways. The whole tribe is so universally loathed that even a chance meeting is thought to be ill-omened--and yet they are gloriously self-satisfied. In the first place, they believe it's the highest form of piety to be so uneducated that they can't even read. Then when they bray like donkeys in church, repeating by rote the psalms they haven't understood, they imagine they are charming the ears of their heavenly audience with infinite delight. Many of them too make a good living out of their squalor and beggary, bellowing for bread from door to door, and indeed making a nuisance of themselves in every inn, carriage, or boat, to the great loss of all the other beggars. This is the way in which these smooth individuals, in all their filth and ignorance, their boorish and shameless behaviour, claim to bring back the apostles into our midst!"

Erasmus, Praise of Folly (1509)

[translated by Betty Radice, notes by A. H. T. Levi (1993)].

Collier

Someone who works in the coal trade. A coal miner.

"Like a collier's sack, bad without, but worse within."

Fuller, Gnomol. Engl. Prov. (1732).

The Chestnut Seller and the Almanac Maker

One who sells fresh or roasted chestnuts.

"At that time, when the Chrysanthemum Festival was almost at hand, a chestnut peddler made his annual trip to the capital. While speaking of one thing and another at the house of the almanac maker, he asked where the mistress was, but as this was an awkward subject in the household none of the servants ventured to answer.

Frowning, Osan's husband told him: 'She's dead.'

'That's strange,' the peddler went on. 'I've seen someone who looks very much like her, in fact, someone who doesn't differ from her one particle. And with her is the living image of your young man.'"

Ihara Saikaku, Five Women Who Loved Love (1686).

Turd Monger

A manure seller.

"That torde monger, whych dysdaynynge my preciouse preceptes, presenteth me with his vile dirty donge."

John Bale, The Apology of J. B. agaynste a ranke papyst (1550).

Lifter

A thief.

"Pads, Biters, Divers, Lifters... these may all pass under the general appellation of Rooks."

Charles Cotton, The Complete Gamester (1674-80).

Buttery-boy

Another kitchen menial, a dairy specialist.

"He drove the English into a sheep-pen; there was he shut in on every side with cooks and buttery-boys, pantlers and grooms and suchlike rabble; one wielded a pitchfork, another a pointed pole; many a shrewd stroke he had from spit and pestle, but all his fellows gave him good help. Then it might have sped ill with their bodies and lives, but up there rode a troop of horse, drawn to the castle by the shouting of the fray."

Picard Trouvere Cuvelier (1350).