or bale up, verb. (Australian).—See quots. 1898 and 1888.
1844. MRS. MEREDITH, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales, 132. The bushrangers … walk quickly in, and ‘BAIL UP,’ i.e., bind with cords, or otherwise secure, the male portion.
1847. MARJORIBANKS, Travels in New South Wales, 72. There were eight or ten bullock-teams BALED UP by three mounted bushrangers. Being BALED UP is colonial for those who are attacked, who are afterwards all put together, and guarded by one of the party of the bushrangers when the others are plundering.
1855. W. HOWITT, Two Years in Victoria, ii. 309. So long as that is wrong, the whole community will be wrong,—in colonial phrase, ‘BAILED UP’ at the mercy of its own tenants.
1862. G. T. LLOYD, Thirty-three Years in Tasmania and Victoria, 192. ‘Come, sir, immediately,… BAIL UP in that corner, and prepare to meet the death you have so long deserved.’
1879. W. J. BARRY, Up and Down, 112. She BAILED ME UP and asked me if I was going to keep my promise and marry her.
1880. SENIOR, Travel and Trout, 36. His troutship, having neglected to secure a line of retreat, was, in colonial parlance, ‘BAILED UP.’
1880. WALCH, Victoria in 1880, 133. The Kelly gang … BAILED UP some forty residents in the local public house.
1880. Blackwood’s Magazine, July, 91. ‘BAIL UP! BAIL UP!’ shout the two red-veiled attackers, revolvers in hand.
1885. FINCH-HATTON, Advance Australia! vii. A little farther on the boar ‘BAILED UP,’ on the top of a ridge.
1888. BOLDREWOOD, Robbery under Arms, 368. A rum go … same talk for cows and Christians. That’s how things get stuck into the talk in a new country. Some old hand like father,… assigned to a dairy settler … had taken to the bush and tried his hand at sticking up people. When … he wanted ’em to stop, ‘Bail up, d—yer,’ would come a deal quicker and more natural-like to his tongue than ‘Stand.’ So ‘BAIL UP’ it was from that day to this.
1890. HUME NISBET, Bail Up! [Title].
1896. LILLARD, Poker Stories, 210. An ‘agent’ entered the car with an order to ‘BAIL UP.’
1898. MORRIS, Austral English, s.v. BAIL UP! (1) To secure the head of a cow in a bail for milking. (2) By transference, to stop travellers in the bush, used of bushrangers… It means generally to stop. Like stick up (q.v.), it is often used humorously of a demand for subscriptions, etc.
