subs. (common).—A social gathering where you smoke, drink, and sing; generally held at a public house.
1796. (In BEE’S Dictionary of the Turf, etc., published 1823, s.v.). Twenty seven years ago the cards of invitation to that (FREE-AND-EASY) at the ‘Pied Horse,’ in Moorfields, had the notable ‘N.B.—Fighting allowed.’
1810. CRABBE, The Borough, Letter 10. Clubs.
| Next is the Club, where to their friends in town | |
| Our country neighbours once a month come down; | |
| We term it FREE-AND-EASY, and yet we | |
| Find it no easy matter to be free. |
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum. FREE AND EASY JOHNS. A society which meets at the Hole in the Wall, Fleet-street, to tipple porter, and sing bawdry.
1821. P. EGAN, Tom and Jerry (ed. 1890), p. 91. Blew a cloud at a FREE-AND-EASY.
1843. MACAULAY. Essays: Gladstone on Church and State. Clubs of all ranks, from those which have lined Pall-Mall and St. James’s Street with their palaces, down to the FREE-AND-EASY which meets in the shabby parlour of the village inn.
1869. E. WOOD, Roland Yorke, ch. xii. He tilted himself on to a high stool in the middle of the room, his legs dangling, just as though he had been at a FREE AND-EASY meeting.
1880. GREENWOOD, The Help-Myself Society, in Odd People in Odd Places, p. 64. A roaring trade is done, for instance, on a Saturday evening at the ‘Medley’ in Hoxton. The Medley is a combination of theatre and music-hall, and serves as a ‘FREE-AND-EASY’ chiefly for boys and girls.
1891. Cassell’s Saturday Journal, Sept., p. 1068, col. 3. The FREE AND EASY of to-day among us is a species of public-house party, at which much indifferent liquor and tobacco are consumed, songs are sung, and speeches are got rid of.
