subs. (old cant).—See quots. TO ANGLE = to steal; ANGLING-COVE = a FENCE (q.v.) (B. E. and GROSE).
1567. HARMAN, A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors, 35. These hokers, or ANGGLERS be peryllous and most wicked Knaues … they customably carry with them a staffe of v. or vi. foote long, in which, within one ynch of the tope thereof, ys a lytle hole … in which they putte an yron hoke, and with the same they wyll plucke vnto them quickly anything that they may reche ther with.
1592. NASHE, A Wonderfull Strange and Miraculous Astrologicall Prognostication, 28 b. Noble Lord warden [the devil] of the Wenches & ANGLERS.
1610. ROWLANDS, Martin Mark-all, 8 [Hunterian Club’s Reprint, 1874]. They are sure to be clyd in the night by the ANGLER, or hooker, or such like pilferers that liue upon the spoyle of other poore people.
1632. DEKKER, English Villanies. An ANGLER for duds carries a short staff in his hand, which is called a filch, having in the nab or head of it a ferme (that is to say a hole) into which, upon any piece of service, when he goes a filching, he putteth a hooke of iron, with which hook he angles at a window in the dead of night for shirts, smockes, or any other linen or woollen.
1749. BAMFYLDE MOORE-CAREW, Oath of Canting Crew. No dimber damber, ANGLER, dancer, Prig of cackler, prig of prancer.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. ANGLERS, pilferers, or petty thieves, who, with a stick having a hook at the end, steal goods out of shop windows, grates, &c. also those who draw in, or entice unwary persons, to prick at the belt, or such like devices.
c. 1819. Old Song, ‘The Young Prig’ [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 83]. The cleanest ANGLER on the pad.
1847. HALLIWELL, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, etc., s.v. ANGLER. One who begs in the daytime, observing what he can steal at night.
