[f. TALLY sb.1 + MAN.]
1. One who carries on a tally-trade, or supplies goods on credit, to be paid for by installments.
1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, IV. xi. 242. Brewers, Clerks, Bakers, and all Tally-men.
1678. Four for Penny, in Harl. Misc. (ed. Park), IV. 148. The unconscionable Tally-man … lets them have ten-shillings-worth of sorry commodities,… on security given to pay him twenty shillings by twelve-pence a week.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Tally-men, Brokers that let out Cloths at moderate Rates to wear per Week, Month, or Year.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 380/2. The pedlar tally-man is a hawker who supplies his customers with goods, receiving payment by weekly instalments, and derives his name from the tally or score he keeps with his customers.
b. (See quot.)
1889. Academy, 29 June, 440/1. In the tailoring trade the worst paid work is that of the ‘tallyman,’ who takes orders direct from the actual wearer without the intervention of any contractor.
2. One who tallies, or keeps account of, anything; spec. a clerk who tallies or checks a cargo in loading or discharging.
1888. Roosevelt, in Century Mag., April, 862/1. With the voice of a stentor the tally-man shouts out the number and sex of each calf.
1889. Doyle, Micah Clarke, 190. I reckon them to be … mayhap five thousand two hundred foot. I have been thought a good tally man on such occasions.
1897. Kipling, Capt. Courageous, ix. I’m tally-man for the schooner.
3. One who ‘lives tally’ with a woman. slang.
1890. N. & Q., 7th Ser. X. 297/1. The terms tally-man and tally-woman, indicating a man and woman living together without marriage, are used in mining districts.
¶ 4. Erroneously for TALESMAN. Obs.
1682. Enq. Elect. Sheriffs, 10. A company of Mercenary fellows, that used to serve as Tallymen in Guild-hall for their Groats a Cause; who … would, to recover their Fourpence a Trial, sell the Charter and all the Priviledges of this honourable Corporation.
Hence Tallymanning, Tallymanship (nonce-wds.), the business or occupation of a tallyman.
1844. J. T. Hewlett, Parsons & W., xxxiv. The nature and objects of tallymanship. Ibid., He talked of nothing but tally-maning.
