swell mob

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

swell mob (plural swell mobs)

1. (archaic, slang) Well-dressed thieves and swindlers, regarded collectively.
   • 1850 September 14, [Charles Dickens], “Three “Detective” Anecdotes”, in Charles Dickens, editor, Household Words. A Weekly Journal., volume I, number 25, London: Office, […], →OCLC:

     But some of the Swell Mob, on the occasion of this Derby that I refer to, so far kiddied us as to hire a horse and shay; start away from London by Whitechapel, and miles round; come into Epsom from the opposite direction; […]

   • 1856, George Laval Chesterton, Revelations of Prison Life, 2nd revised edition, volume 1, London: Hurst and Blackett, →OCLC, page 137:

     A grand distinction is to be drawn, in this respect, between the swell mob and common thieves; the former being, for the most part, men of the world, of some education—not appearing at all flash (thief-like), but, on the contrary, acting the part of gentlemen in society.

   • 1911, G. K. Chesterton, “Our Mutual Friend”, in Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, →OCLC, page 212:

     There is the old faculty of managing a crowd, of making character clash with character, that had made Dickens not only the democrat but even the demagogue of fiction. For if it is hard to manage a mob, it is hardest of all to manage a swell mob. The particular kind of chaos that is created by the hospitality of a rich upstart has perhaps never been so accurately and outrageously described.

   • 2002, Meg Arnot, Cornelie Usborne, Gender And Crime in Modern Europe, page 82:

     A boy called Hewitt, awaiting transportation on the Euryalus hulk in the mid-1830s, told an interviewer that the swell-mob would often call into lodging-houses in order to recruit "go-alongs" for thieving expeditions: "boys are delighted [they] think it an honour to go with a swell-mob".

Derived terms

• swell-mobsman

References

• “mob”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.