subs. (costers’).—In pl. = pearl buttons: sewn down the sides of the trousers.
1886–96. MARSHALL, ‘Pomes’ from the Pink ’Un (‘Bleary Bill’), 60. Oh! why are your PEARLIES so bright, bleary Bill?
1892. National Observer, 27 Feb., p. 378. Look at my PEARLIES, Kool my ’ed of ’air.
1894. CHEVALIER, The Coster’s Serenade [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 196]. Me in my PEARLIES felt a toff that day.
1900. Daily Mail, 23 March, 4, 5. Had the soldier had as many buttons to his tunic as the average London coster has PEARLIES on his holiday inexpressibles, he could speedily have realised a small fortune.
1901. W. E. HENLEY, Hawthorn and Lavender, 78. With PEARLIES and a barrer and a Jack.
