Wherein is discovered the nature of every term, being proper to none but to the professors thereof.
1 High law |
Robbing by the highway side. |
2 Sacking law |
Lechery. |
3 Cheating law |
Play at false dice. |
4 Cross-biting law |
Cozenage by whores. |
5 Cony-catching law |
Cozenage by cards. |
6 Versing law |
Cozenage by false gold. |
7 Figging law |
Cutting of purses, & picking of pockets. |
8 Barnard's law |
A drunken cozenage by cards. |
These are the eight laws of villainy, leading the high way to infamy.
In high law. |
The thief is called a high lawyer. |
In sacking law. |
The bawd, if it be a woman a pander |
In cheating law. |
Pardon me gentlemen,for although no man could better than myself discover this law and his terms,and the name of their cheats, barddice, flats, forgers, langrets, gourds, demies,and many other, with their nature, & the crosses and contraries to them upon advantage, yet for some special reasons, herein I will be silent. |
In cross-biting law |
The whore the traffique |
In cony-catching law |
The party that taketh up the cony the setter. |
In versing law. |
He that bringeth him in the verser |
In Figging law. |
He that bringeth him in a nip |
In Barnard's law. |
He that fetcheth the man the taker |
Cum multis aliis quζ nunc prζscribere longum est. <8>
These quaint terms do these base arts use to shadow their villainy withal: for, multa latent quζ non patent,<9> obscuring their filthy crafts with these fair colours, that the ignorant may not espy what their subtlety is: but their end will be like their beginning, hatched with Cain, and consumed with Judas: and so bidding them adieu to the devil, and you farewell to God, I end. And now to the art of cross-biting.