PITCHING THE HUNTERS, verb. phr. (costermongers’). See quot.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, i., 390. PITCHING THE HUNTERS is the three sticks a penny, with the snuff-boxes stuck upon sticks; if you throw your stick, and they fall out of the hole, you are entitled to what you knock off.
1876. C. HINDLEY, ed. The Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 235. When … there was no cattle jobbing to be done, he would ‘PITCH THE HUNTERS,’ that is, put up the ‘three sticks a penny’ business.
