Jackson, Louis E., and C.R. Hellyer. A Vocabulary Of Criminal Slang, With Some Examples Of Common Usages: by Louis E. Jackson, Assisted by C.R. Hellyer, City Detective Department. [Modern Printing Co.], [ c 1914].

NOTE: The text of my own PDF version has been bookmarked for ease of access (it's the 5.5.MB PDF in the file tree on the right side of this page - the PDF with the smaller file 2.5 MB size is the Internet Archive's low resolution PDF, which leaves a bit to be desired).

A Vocabulary Of Criminal Slang, With Some Examples Of Common Usages is a glossary of the type of criminal and hardboiled slang that you might expect to find in mystery and detective pulp stories. It's interesting to note that many of the terms that we associate with hardboiled fiction or gangster films were already in common usage as far back as 1914!

This booklet was compiled by Louis E. Jackson, in collaboration with C.R. Hellyer (a member of the City Detective Department of Portland, Oregon). It includes 430 terms with definitions and examples; many of these are still current (a "buck" for a dollar; a "chump" for a gullible or stupid person), others outdated ("dony"--a prostitute, derived from the Hebrew "yoni"; "jerve," as used by pickpockets, in reference to a vest pocket; "roscoe," "rod," or "smokewagon"--all referring to a gun).

Detective Hellyer writes that the booklet ". . . is submitted for the perusal and study of all those public officers and professional servants whose responsibilities are such as to bring them into casual or constant contact with the confirmed criminal classes."

Of the terms included, he says that "criminal idiom is largely an ingenious combination of epithet suggested by similitude and a perverted construction of essential and accidental attributes of things and powers to imply or express the things and actions themselves. . .The sole excuse for criminal slang is the protection afforded by secrecy, which once destroyed the slang is forced to die of neglect, though it will naturally be superseded by evolutionary linguistic devices. To fraternize with a secret order we must equip ourselves with a knowledge of the ceremonies and aims as well as the selective means of the secret fraternists. To combat criminals successfully it is necessary to understand their complete vehicles of intercommunication. . ."