or chuck, chuck-and-toss, or pitch-and-toss, subs. phr. (common).—Games played with money, which is PITCHED at a line, gathered, shaken in the hands, and tossed up into the air so as to fall ‘heads and tails’ until the stakes are guessed away. A parish clerk was formerly nicknamed a CHUCK-FARTHING.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew. CHUCK FARTHING: a Parish Clerk (in the Satyr against Hypocrites) also a Play among Boies.
1703. WARD, The London Spy, pt. XIII., p. 317. Where Mumpers, Soldiers and Ballad-Singers, were as busie at CHUCK-FARTHING and Hussle-Cap, as so many Rooks at a gaming Ordinary.
1712. Spectator, No. 509. The unlucky boys with toys and balls were whipped away by a beadle, I have seen this done indeed of late, but then it has been only to chase the lads from CHUCK, that the beadle might seize their copper.
1759. STERNE, Tristram Shandy, vol. I., ch. x. The spinning-wheel forgot its round,—even CHUCK-FARTHING and shuffle-cap themselves stood gaping till he had got out of sight.
1821. JOHN CLARE, The Village Minstrel, I., 174. With CHUCK and marbles wearing Sunday through.
1851. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, II., p. 398. They frequently had halfpence given to them. They played also at CHUCK AND TOSS with the journeymen, and of course were stripped of every farthing.
c. 1868. BROUGH, Field of the Cloth of Gold. From PITCH-AND-TOSS to manslaughter’s my game.
1878. M. E. BRADDON, The Cloven Foot, ch. xlii. ‘I remember when I was a little chap, at Dr Prossford’s grammar school, playing CHUCK-FARTHING.’
1888. Illustrated London News, Summer Number, p. 26, col. 1. Having replaced the musty documents upon the shelf, that ingenious youth adjourned to indulge in the passionately exhilarating game of CHUCK-FARTHING.
