Maunderer

A beggar.

"I am a maunderer upon the pad I confesse."

Thomas Middleton & T. Dekker, The Roaring Girle, or Moll Cut purse (1611).

Dragoon

A soldier on horse who dismounted to fight, armed with a gun that spits fire (like a dragon).

"These founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious Dragoons, the sons of greedy and ferocious pirates."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, English Traits (1856).

Ratcatcher

An exterminator of rats. Someone whose job is to catch rats.

"Societies for the suppression of vice: Beginning with the best intentions in the world, such societies must in all probability degenerate into a receptacle for every species of tittle-tattle, impertinence and malice. Men whose trade is rat-catching love to catch rats; the bug-destroyer seizes on his bug with delight; and the suppressor is gratified by finding his vice. The last soon becomes a mere tradesman like the others; none of them moralize, or lament that their respective evils should exist in the world. The public feeling is swallowed up in the pursuit of a daily occupation, and in the display of a technical skill."

--Sydney Smith.

A Paltry Alderman

A local magistrate. A warden of a guild.

"He was a pirate with a tremendous and sanguinary history; and as long as he preserved upspotted, in retirement, the dignity of his name and the grandeur of his ancient calling, homage and reverence were his from high and low; but when at last he descended into politics and became a paltry alderman, the public 'shook' him, and turned aside and wept. When he died, they set up a monument over him; and little by little he has come into respect again; but it is respect for the pirate, not the alderman. To-day the loyal and generous remember only what he was, and charitably forget what he became."

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Hand

Anyone who performs some sort of manual labor (i.e., manipulates matter with the hands; works with one's hands). Also, a sailor.

"Near 2,000 hands are said to be employed here in the manufactory of shalloons, tammies and serges."

English Gazette (1778).

Smith or Farrier

One who shoes horses. A horse doctor.

"An excellent Smith or Farryer who shall ever be furnished with Horseshoes, nayles, and drugges, both for inward and outward applycations."

Francis Markham, Five decades of epistles of Warre 1632.

Roofer

Someone who repairs or constructs roofs.

“I’ve had to dig with my fingernails for a living. What can anybody do without capital? What they can do I can do but it’s not much. I fix what’s broken—except in the heart. In this shtetl everything is falling apart—who bothers with leaks in his roof if he’s peeking through the cracks to spy on God? And who can pay to have it fixed let’s say he wants it, which he doesn’t. If he does, half the time I work for nothing. If I’m lucky, a dish of noodles. Opportunity here is born dead.”

Bernard Malamud, The Fixer (1966).