subs. (common).—1. See quots.
1796. P. COLQUHOUN, A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, (3rd ed.), p. 58. These River Plunderers … practise another device, by connecting themselves with men and boys, known by the name of MUD-LARKS, who prowl about, and watch under the discharging ships when the tide will permit, and to whom they throw small parcels of sugar, coffee, and other articles of plunder, which are conveyed to the receivers by the MUD-LARKS, who generally have a certain share of the booty.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
1823. BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Dictionary of the Turf, etc., s.v. MUD-LARKS—fellows who scratch about in gutters for horsenails, and other fragments of scrap-iron; also women who go into the Thames, at low-water, to pick from the mud bits of coal, which are spilled from the barges along-shore.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, ii. 173. There is another class who may be termed river-finders, although their occupation is connected only with the shore; they are commonly known by the name of ‘MUD-LARKS,’ from being compelled, in order to obtain the articles they seek, to wade sometimes up to their middle through the mud left on the shore by the retiring tide…. The MUD-LARKS collect whatever they happen to find, such as coals, bits of old-iron, rope, bones, and copper nails that drop from ships while lying or repairing along shore.
1871. Daily News, 26 Dec. ‘Workhouse Xmas. Depravity.’ Why, there’s Jemima Ann … has … been bleeding me of a fiver to send to some Christmas Dinner Fund for juvenile MUDLARKS.
2. (old).—A duck.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
3. (city).—Any one with outdoor duties.
4. (common).—A street-Arab (q.v.).
5. (old).—A hog.—GROSE (1785).
