[f. CHUM + -AGE.]
1. The system of ‘chumming’ one person upon another; the quartering of two or more persons in one room. Hence chummage-ticket.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xlii. You’ll have a chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the room will be your chums.
1859. Sala, Tw. round Clock (1861), 103. The time-honoured system of ‘chummage,’ or quartering two or more collegians in one room, and allowing the richest to pay his companions a stipulated sum to go out and find quarters elsewhere.
2. The fee demanded of a ‘new chum’ (prison slang), or that paid as described in prec. quot.
1777. Howard, Prisons Eng., 16. A cruel custom obtains in most of our gaols, which is that of the prisoners demanding of a new comer, garnish, footing, or (as it is called in some of the London gaols) chummage.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xlii. The regular chummage is two-and-sixpence.
