A tramp with vicious proclivities; a cracksman.
1903. The prompt breaking up of the organized bands of professional beggars and yeggs.—N.Y. Evening Post, June 23.
1910. The origin of the word “yegg” has often puzzled criminal etymologists. As near as can be discovered by researches of police archives and the verbal lore of the under world, there was a man named John Yegg living in a Middle Western town some years ago, about the time the United States government was experimenting with nitroglycerine. Yegg was an electrician, who had got along well enough in youth, but in later days had taken to drink and drifted to the bad. At this time he had already attained some fame among his kind as a safe-blower, an art at which his early mechanical training stood him in good stead. He is said to have been the first cracksman to see the possibilities of nitroglycerine, which was at once tremendously powerful and much safer than powder or dynamite, then in general use.—Id., April 4.
1910. It puzzles [the ordinary citizen of N.Y.] to have the country cousin clutch his arm and enquire whether that rough-looking customer coming out of a Chatham Square saloon is a dip, a yegg, a stall, a moll-buzzer, a Fagin, or a gun.—Id., Aug. 25.
