or sawdusty, subs. (common).—1.  Humbug: also as adj.

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  1884.  MILLIKEN, ’Arry Ballads, in Punch, 11 Oct. ‘’Arry at a Political Pic-nic.’

                            Fancy, old chump,
Me doing the SAWDUSTY reglar, and follering swells on the stump!
    Ibid., ’Arry Ballads, 41, ‘On Song and Sentiment.’
That’s larks, that’s true poetry, ain’t it? Not SAWDUST and snivel, no fear!

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  2.  (American).—A variety of the confidence trick.

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  1888.  Pittsburg Times, 8 Feb. He is implicated in the robbery of 10,000 dollars from William Murdock on Saturday a week ago. Murdock was drawn into a SAWDUST game in an office whose location he could not remember, on Grant street.

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  1888.  New Orleans Times Democrat, 6 Feb. The prominent men you speak of are never at the front in any of these SAWDUST transactions…. The courts find it very difficult to send a man to State prison for this kind of swindling, and the SAWDUST man who fights hard is generally certain of acquittal.

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