subs. (pugilistic).—1. A neckerchief named after Jim Belcher, a noted pugilist. The ground is blue, with large white spots having a dark-blue spot or eye in the centre of each. Hence any handkerchief of a parti-colour round the neck.
1812. Examiner, 21 Sept., 607, 1. The traverser … tied a BELCHER handkerchief round his neck.
1825. LISTER, Granby, xxxix. 261. Instead of the BELCHER he has a loose black handkerchief round his neck.
1834. W. H. AINSWORTH, Rockwood, IV. i. What we now call a BELCHER bound his throat.
1836. DICKENS, Sketches by Boz, ‘Pawnbroker’s Shop.’ The silver fork and the flat iron, the muslin cravat and the BELCHER neckerchief, would but ill assort together. Ibid., ‘Miss Evans and the Eagle.’ Mr. Wilkins had brought a pint of shrimps neatly folded up in a clean BELCHER to give a zest to the meal.
1844. THACKERAY, Barry Lyndon, xvii. Now every man has the same coachman-like look in his BELCHER and caped coat.
1846. BULWER-LYTTON, Lucretia, 154. The lower part of [the face] was enveloped in an enormous BELCHER.
1857. DICKENS, The Ghost of Art [in Reprinted Pieces, 215]. I saw that the lower part of his face was tied up, in what is commonly called a BELCHER handkerchief.
1862. BURTON, Book Hunter, i. 31. The fragments of a parti-coloured BELCHER handkerchief.
1874. Macmillan’s Magazine, April, 506. The spotted blue and white neckerchief, still called a BELCHER, bears the name of a famous prize-fighter.
2. (thieves’).—See quot.
1851. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I., p. 399. The best sort of rings for fawney dropping is the BELCHERS. They are a good thick looking ring, and have the crown and V.R. stamped upon them.
3. See BELCH.
