Names of the two chief characters in Egan’s Life in London, 1821, and its continuation, 1828; whence in various allusive and attributive uses, esp. as name of a compound alcoholic drink, a kind of highly spiced punch (U.S.); and attrib. in Tom and Jerry shop (Engl.), a low beer-house. Hence Tom-and-Jerry v., intr. to drink and indulge in riotous behavior, like young bloods of the Regency period; Tom-and-Jerryism, drunken roistering, window-breaking, and the like.
The title of Egan’s original work (1821), is ‘Life in London, or Days and Nights of Jerry Hawthorne and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom’; that of the continuation of 1828 is ‘Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic,’ whence app. the order of the names in Tom and Jerry.
(Tom and Jerry shop was app. an expansion of the earlier Jerry-shop ‘a low beer-house’ (in Preston Temperance Advocate, March, 1834, 18/2), which had no original connection with Tom and Jerry.)
1828. Lights & Shades, I. 124. No drinking and raking. No Tom-and-Jerrying in those days.
1829. W. Irving, in Life & Lett. (1864), II. 387. We are too apt to take our ideas of English life from such vulgar sources as Tom and Jerry and we appear to be Tom and Jerrying it to perfection in New York.
1852. Mundy, Our Antipodes (1857), 207. As the glazier prays for hail-storms, civic riots, and the revival of Tom-and-Jerryism, for his own private ends!
1863. Jerry Thomas, How to mix Drinks (N. Y.) 69 [Recipe]. Ibid. To deal out Tom and Jerry to Customers. Ibid. Adepts at the bar in serving Tom and Jerry [etc.].
1865. Slang Dict., Tom and Jerry [ed. 1873 adds shop], a low drinking shop.
1880. Barman’s Man., 47 [Recipe for Tom and Jerry].
1884. S. Dowell, Taxation, II. 277. Free trade in beer in over 31,000 ‘Tom and Jerry’ shops, as the new beer-houses and shops were termed.
1894. Northumbld. Gloss., Tom-and-Jerry, a catcall.
1899. Morrow, Bohem. Paris, 305. Sipping Manhattan cocktails with a cherry-brandy-and-soda, Tom-and-Jerry, and the rest.
1903. Farmer & Henley, Slang Dict., Tom and Jerry days, the period of the Regency (1810–20); also, ‘when George IV. was king.’
