"saltee" Definition

a penny. Pence, &c., are thus reckoned:— ONEY SALTEE, a penny, from the _Italian_, UNO SOLDO. DOOE SALTEE, twopence DUE SOLDI. TRAY SALTEE, threepence TRE SOLDI. QUARTERER SALTEE, fourpence QUATTRO SOLDI. CHINKER SALTEE, fivepence CINQUE SOLDI. SAY SALTEE, sixpence SEI SOLDI. SAY ONEY SALTEE, or SETTER SALTEE, sevenpence SETTE SOLDI. SAY DOOE SALTEE, or OTTER SALTEE, eightpence OTTO SOLDI. SAY TRAY SALTEE, or NOBBA SALTEE, ninepence NOVE SOLDI. SAY QUARTERER SALTEE, or DACHA SALTEE, tenpence DIECI SOLDI. SAY CHINKER SALTEE, or DACHA ONEY SALTEE, elevenpence DIECI UNO SOLDI, &c. ONEY BEONG, one shilling. A BEONG SAY SALTEE, one shilling and sixpence. DOOE BEONG SAY SALTEE, or MADZA CAROON, half-a-crown, or two shillings and sixpence. ⁂ This curious list of numerals in use among the London street folk is, strange as it may seem, derived from the _Lingua Franca_, or bastard _Italian_, of the Mediterranean seaports, of which other examples may be found in the pages of this Dictionary. SALTEE, the cant term used by the costermongers and others for a penny, is no other than the _Italian_, SOLDO (plural, SOLDI), and the numerals—as may be seen by the _Italian_ equivalents—are a tolerably close imitation of the originals. After the number six, a curious variation occurs, which is peculiar to the London cant, seven being reckoned as SAY ONEY, _six-one_, SAY DOOE, _six-two_ = 8, and so on. DACHA is perhaps from the _Greek_ δέκα, ten, which, in the Constantinopolitan _Lingua Franca_, is likely enough to have been substituted for the _Italian_. MADZA is clearly the _Italian_ MEZZA. The origin of BEONG has not yet been discovered, unless it be the _French_ BIEN, the application of which to a shilling is not so evident; but amongst costermongers and other street folk it is quite immaterial what foreign tongue contributes to their secret language. Providing the terms are unknown to the police and the public generally, they care not a rush whether the polite French, the gay Spaniards, or the cloudy Germans help to swell their vocabulary. The numbers of low foreigners, however, dragging out a miserable existence in our crowded neighbourhoods, organ grinders and image sellers, foreign seamen from the vessels in the river, and our own connexion with Malta and the Ionian Isles, may explain, to a certain extent, the phenomenon of these Southern phrases in the mouths of costers and tramps. Professor Ascoli, in his _Studj Critici_, absurdly enough derives these words from the ancient commercial importance of Italian settlers in England, when they gave a name to Lombard Street!