(political).—See QUOTATION.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 28 March. Whatever ultimately comes of the Sunday Closing movement, it will at any rate leave behind it a curious addition to the English language. This is the word ‘BELLY-CAN,’ which is (according to the opponents of Sunday Closing) the plebeian counterpart of the more genteel ‘small cask’—both things being, of course, contrivances for getting round the legal prohibition of Sunday drinking. Lexicographers may perhaps be glad to have the definitions of the two phrases as given yesterday afternoon by Mr. Cavendish Bentinck:—The ‘BELLY-CAN’ was a tin vessel not unlike a saddle in shape, which men and women, generally the latter—let hon. members note that—got filled with beer and secreted about their clothes, an averaged-sized can holding about four quarts. A more aristocratic method of private Sunday drinking was by means of the ‘small cask.’ The small cask industry was said to be an exceedingly prosperous one in certain districts. Grocers advertised for casks as a speciality, and one grocer advertised on a Saturday fifty and sixty and sometimes even 100 empty casks.
