goblin / hobgoblin

A girl paying goblins for fruit by cutting off a lock of her blonde hair, illustrating the line “Buy from us with a golden curl” from Christina Rossetti’s 1859 poem The Goblin Market, drawn by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti

29 October 2020

A goblin is a malevolent, gnome-like creature of folklore and fantasy. The word’s etymology is rather straightforward. It comes from the Old French gobelin, which is attested to once in the twelfth century and then becomes more common in the sixteenth century. The French presumably got it from the unattested Latin *gobalus, which in turn is from the Greek κόβαλος (kobalos), meaning rogue or knave, and its plural κόβαλοι (kobaloi), which can carry the meaning of mischievous sprites.

Goblin first appears in English in the first half of the fourteenth century in the poem “Of Rybaudȝ,” which appears in the manuscript London, British Library, MS Harley 2253. Harley 2253 is an anthology of poetry that contains a large number of early Middle English poetic works. The lines in question are:

The harlotes bueth horlynges ant haunteth the plawe,
The gedelynges bueth glotouns ant drynketh er hit dawe,
Sathanas, huere syre, seyde on is sawe:
“Gobelyn made is gerner of gromene mawe.”

(The scoundrels are fornicators and pursue pleasure;
The bastards are gluttons and drink until dawn.
Satan, their sire, said in his proverb:
“A goblin sets his storehouse in a young man’s stomach.”)  

A hobgoblin is pretty much the same creature. The hob- element comes from a familiar form of the name Robin or Robert. This hypocoristic form of the name also appears first in Harley 2253, this time in the poem “Lystneth, lordynges!,” which mocks King Robert the Bruce of Scotland:

Nou Kyng Hobbe in the mures yongeth;
Forte come to toune nout him ne longeth.
The barouns of Engelond, myhte hue him gripe,
He him wolde techen on Englysshe to pype
           Thourh streynthe.
      Ne be he ner so stout,
      Yet he bith ysoht out
      O brede ant o leynthe

(Now King Hob walks on the moors;
For to come to town doesn’t suit him
The barons of England, if they might seize him,
Would teach him to pipe in English
           By Force,
      Though he be never so brave,
      Yet he is sought out
      Far and wide.)

In the late fifteenth century, the name Robin or Robert, and the associated Hob, become associated with elves or sprites, most famously in the name of Robin Goodfellow, or Puck, of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Cf. hobbit ). But the first appearance of hob as a noun meaning such a sprite is in the second Towneley play, the “Murder of Abel.” The plays appear in the manuscript San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 1, which was copied sometime between 1475–1500 C.E. In the passage in question, Cain refers to God as a hob:

Deus.   Cam, whi art thou so rebell
            Agans thi brother Abell?

            Thar thou nowther flyte ne chyde.
            If thou tend right thou gettys thi mede;
            And be thou sekir, if thou teynd fals,
            Thou bese alowed therafter als.

Caym.  Whi, who is that hob ouer the wall?
            We? who was that piped so small?
            Com, go we hens, for parels all—
            God is out of hys wit!
            Com furth, Abell, and let vs weynd
            Me thynk that God is not my freynd.

(God    Cain, why are you so rebellious
            Against your brother Abel?

            There you should neither scold nor argue.
            If you do right, you will get your reward,

And you will be safe, but if you tend false,
You will be likewise compensated thereafter.

Cain    Why, who is that hob over the wall?
We? Who was that who chirped so faintly?
Come, let us go hence, for it is dangerous to all—
God is out of his wits!
Come forth, Abel, and let us go
I think that God is not my friend.)

The first known appearance of hobgoblin is in a glossary in John Palsgrave’s 1530 French grammar:

Hobgoblyng    gobelin s ma. mavffe s te.

And a fuller context can be gleaned from its use in Thomas Drant’s 1567 translation of Horace’s Ars poetica (The Poetic Art):

The things thats fainde for pleasure sake be nexte to true in place.
No commodie can hope to haue all credit in eche case.
To bringe in as a trim deuise an ould wyfes chat, or tale
Of wiches buggs, and hobgoblings, such trashe is noughte to sayle.
Unprofitable Poesies, the sage sorte will not heare
And austere woorkes, the youthfull sorte will ouerlooke them cleare.

(The things that are desired for pleasure’s sake should be near to the truth.
No comedy can hope to be believed in every case.
To bring in as a pretty device an old wives’ prattle or tale
Of witches bugs and hobgoblins, such trash is not to be circulated.
Unprofitable poetry the wise sort will not hear,
And austere works the young sort will clearly despise.)

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Sources:

American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, 2020, s.v. goblin, n.

Horace. Horace His Art of Poesie. Thomas Drant, trans. London: Thomas Marshe, 1567, B.3–B.4. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

“Lystneth, lordynges! A newe song Ichulle bigynne / The Execution of Sir Simon Fraser.” The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, vol. 2. Susanna Greer Fein, ed. TEAMS Middle English Text Series. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2014.

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. gobelin, n.

“Of Rybauds Y Ryme ant Red o My Rolle.” The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, vol. 3. Susanna Greer Fein, ed. TEAMS Middle English Text Series. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2015.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2016, s.v. goblin, n.1; second edition, 1989, s.v. hobgoblin, n. (and adj.), Hob, n.1.

Palsgrave, John. Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse. London: Richard Pynson and John Hawkins, 1530, fol. 40r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Robbins, Rossell Hope. Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959, 28, 216. HathTrust Digital Archive.

Stevens, Martin and A.C. Cawley, eds. The Towneley Plays, vol 1 of 2. Early English Text Society, S.S. 13. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, 20. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Image credit: Dante G. Rossetti, frontispiece from Rossetti, Christina. Poems. London: Macmillan and Co., 1862.

vampire

Screenshot from the trailer for the 1931 film Dracula featuring Bela Lugosi as the title character

28 October 2020

The ultimate origin of the name of this blood-sucking fiend is somewhat in dispute, but vampire’s history in the English language is fairly well established. It’s first known appearance in English is in 1731/32. (The difference in years is because England and Wales adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1751, and New Year’s Day shifted from 25 March to 1 January. It was 1731 by the contemporary reckoning and 1732 by present-day reckoning.)

The major dictionaries are all in agreement that English borrowed vampire from the French vampyre, which borrowed it from the German vampir, which borrowed it from the Serbian vampir. Beyond that, the trail gets muddy, but the word is ultimately either of Slavic or Turkic origin.

The English word first appears in a news item published in the Grub-Street Journal of 16 March 1731/32. The story relates the tale of Arnold Paul, an alleged vampire. The story is well known in vampire lore and contains many of the tropes we currently associate with the myth, and it is one the first vampire stories to be widely disseminated in western Europe. The tale, as printed in the Grub-Street Journal bears a dateline of 10 March 1731/32 and reads as follows:

Medreyga in Hungary, Jan. 7, 1732. Upon a current Report, that in the Village of Medreyga certain dead Bodies (called here Vampyres) had killed several Persons, by sucking out all their blood, the present Enquiry was made by the Honourable Commander in Chief; and Capt. Gorschutz of the Company of Stallater, the Hadnagi Bariacrar, and the Senior Heyduke of the village were severally examined: who unanimously declared that about 5 Years ago a certain Heyduke, named Arnold Paul, was killed by the overturning of a cart load of hay, who in this life-time was often heard to say, he had been tormented near Caschaw, and upon the Borders of Turkish Servia, by a Vampyre; and that to extricate himself, he had eaten some of the Earth of the Vampyres graves, and rubb’d himself with their Blood.——That 20 or 30 Days after the decease of the said Arnold Paul, several persons complained that they were tormented, and that, in short, he had taken away the lives of four persons. In order, therefore, to put a stop to such a calamity, the inhabitants of the place, after having consulted their Hadnagi, caused the Body of the said Arnold Paul to be taken up, 40 Days after he had been dead, and found the same to be fresh and free from all manner of corruption; that he bled at the nose, mouth and ears, as pure and florid blood as ever was seen; and that his shroud and winding sheet were all over bloody; and lasty his finger and toe nails were fallen off, and new ones grown in their room.——As they observed from all these circumstances, that he was a Vampyre, they, according to custom, drove a stake through his heart; at which he gave a horrid groan, and lost a great deal of blood. Afterwards they burnt his body to ashes the same day, and threw them into his grave.——These good men say farther, that all such as have been tormented, or killed by Vampyres, become Vampyres when they are dead; and therefore they served several other dead bodies as they had done Arnold Paul’s, for tormenting the living.—Signed, Batuer, first Lieutenant of the Regiment of Alexander. Flikbenger, Surgeon Major to the Regiment of Furstemburch.—Three other Surgeons. Gurschitz, Captain a Stallath.

The story was retold and reprinted several times, becoming quite famous in England. Several weeks after the initial printing, it was reprinted in the Craftsman of 20 May 1732, which in addition to the retelling the Paul story also used vampire in a figurative sense, that of someone who uses a position of trust to embezzle money:

Give me Leave to observe, in this Place, that Private Persons may be Vampyres, in some Degree, as well as Those in publick Employments. I look upon all Sharpers, Usurers and Stockjobbers in this Light, as well as fraudulent Guardians, unjust Stewards, and the dry Nurses of great Estates. I make no Doubt that a noble Colonel, lately deceased, hath already convinced several Families that He is a Vampyre; and I could mention several other Gentlemen, in great Favour at present, who have intitled Themselves to same Denomination.

It will not, I suppose, be deny’d that many of the late South-Sea Directors were Tormenters of this Sort; and I heartily with that the present Managers of that Company may not furnish us with some Instances of the same Nature.

The Charitable Corporation hath produced a plentiful Crop of these Blood-suckers, whose Depredations have already ruin’d a Multitude of People, and I am afraid will torment others, even yet unborn.

Within a year this figurative use of vampire was being used without any reference to “real” vampires, indicating that the myth had become fully established in the English psyche. From an open letter to Robert Walpole of 28 February 1733/34:

When a Dutchman is paying his Taxes, which he does with every Bit he puts in his Mouth, it is some Satisfaction to him to know that he is not giving from his Family what he has earned with the sweat of his Brows, to build Palaces, and make magnificent Gardens; to buy glaring Equipages, sumptuous Furniture, Jewels, Plate, and costly Pictures, &c. to indulge the Luxury, and gratify the Rapine of a fat-gutted Vampire.

A similar use is by Charles Hornby in a review of a book about British peerages, where he uses vampire in a discussion of an error in the book. Evidently, the author of the book confused Robert de Brus, a.k.a. Bruce the Competitor, fifth lord of Annandale, who died in 1295, with more famous his grandson, Robert the Bruce, soon-to-be king of Scotland, who killed John Comyn in 1306:

Is there one who looks into the History of those Times, but knows, that John Comyn of Badenach was killed at Dumfries in the Beginning of the year 1306; and our Author has told us, (and very truly as it happens) that this Competitor died in the Year 1295. Now, dear Sir, is it not very miraculous, that his Disappointment should make as blood-thirsty as a Vampire, and that after about ten Years he should steal out of his Grave, with a malicious Design to commit Murder?

Our present-day conception of a suave, aristocratic vampire was invented by John William Polidori in his 1819 gothic horror story The Vampyre, which featured an English nobleman, a Lord Ruthven, as the vampire. Polidori’s novel is also of note because the germ of the story was planted during an 1816 story-telling contest with Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley. And Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was also famously the result of this contest.

Of course, the most famous vampire is Count Dracula, created by Bram Stoker in his 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. Stoker’s character is named after Vlad III of Wallachia (c.1430–1476/77), a.k.a. Vlad Dracula and Vlad the Impaler. Other than the name, Stoker’s character bears little resemblance to the historical figure. Stoker is likely to have read and been influenced by Polidori’s story.

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[29 October edit: added paragraph about and reference to Polidori’s novel]

Sources:

American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, 2020, s.v., vampire, n.

The Craftsman, 9.307, 20 May 1732. London: R. Francklin, 1737, 120–22, 127. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Foreign News.” (10 March 1731/32). The Grub-Street Journal (London), no. 115, 16 March 1731/32. Gale News Vault.

Forman, Charles. A Second Letter to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole. London: J. Wilford, 28 February 1733/34, 38. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Hornby, Charles. A Third Letter Containing Some Further Remarks on a Few More of the Numberless Errors and Defects in Dugdale’s Baronage. London: 1738, 204–05. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Merriam-Webster.com, 2020, s.v. vampire, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. vampire, n.

Shapiro, Fred. “Antedating of Vampire.” ADS-L, 22 April 2013.

Photo credit: Dracula, Tod Browning and Karl Freund, dir., Universal Pictures, 1931. Public domain image in the United States.

October surprise

27 October 2020

Political columnist and word maven William Safire defined an October surprise as a “last minute disruption before an election; unexpected political stunt, revelation, or diplomatic maneuver that could affect an election’s outcome.” The term is often applied, but not exclusively so, to such events that are orchestrated by one of the political campaigns.

During the 2016 presidential election, FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress on 28 October, less than two weeks before the election, announcing that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she had been Secretary of State. Comey’s action, which was contrary to Justice Department policy regarding such announcements that could influence an election, certainly qualified as an October surprise, although there is considerable debate as to whether or not it tipped the scales in favor of Donald Trump’s candidacy.

And with October 2020 nearly over, it doesn’t appear that there will be an October surprise this election cycle—although the bruhaha over Hunter Biden’s laptop, something that will surely be relegated to a footnote, at best, when the histories are written, was clearly a very inept attempt by the Trump campaign to generate one. But regardless of whether or not one appears, for forty years, the fear of an October surprise has hung over every presidential campaign.

The term October surprise dates to 1980, and was apparently coined by someone in Ronald Reagan’s campaign in reference to the campaign’s fear that just before the election President Jimmy Carter would announce the release of the fifty-two American hostages that were being held by Iran. The hostages had been taken on 4 November 1979, exactly one year prior to election day in 1980.

Syndicated political columnist Jack Anderson first reported on the phrase on 10 June 1980:

The biggest fear in Ronald Reagan’s inner circle right now is that Jimmy Carter will get an unexpected boost in the election campaign from an “October surprise.” Reagan’s advisers worry that a startling news development like last year’s “November surprise,” the Tehran hostage seizure, will rally support around a beleaguered president.

There’s not much the Republicans can do to forestall such an unpredictable blockbuster, so they’ll continue to hammer away at the gap between candidate Carter’s promises and President Carter’s achievements.

Meanwhile, Reagan is working on a “July surprise” of his own for unveiling at the Detroit convention. His choice of a running mate, insiders confide, will be someone who can broaden his appeal, rather than a political carbon copy who might please only a narrow base of ultraconservative true believers.

The July surprise turned out to be the naming of Reagan’s former rival for the Republican nomination, George H.W. Bush, as his running mate, just as Anderson reported. But July surprise didn’t become a catchphrase, presumably because July is too far away from a November election to be a surprise to voters.

But October surprise rapidly caught on and became a term of political art, and the term appears in numerous newspaper stories and columns starting in July. As reported by the Ithaca Journal, Reagan’s campaign was going on the record about it by 15 July 1980, although they were cagey about linking the surprise to the hostages, lest they be accused of “playing politics” with the international crisis:

Predicting an “October surprise” by President Carter, top campaign aides to Ronald Reagan said this morning they will establish an “intelligence operation” to monitor Carter’s political activities this fall.

[...]

As for the “October surprise,” neither Casey nor Meese would predict precisely what they had in mind. “it could be almost anything from a summit conference on energy to something happening in South America,” Casey said. “I don’t know if it will be wage and price controls or what.”

While July surprise did not turn out to have any legs, November surprise, however, did have a brief time in the spotlight in 1980. As October drew to a close and the prospect of release of the hostages that month dimmed, sights turned toward it happening in first few days of November. On 17 October 1980, the West Palm Beach Post quoted third-party candidate John Anderson using it, although he was referring to his hopes for surprise victory on election day:

John Anderson said yesterday he is in the race for president until the last polling place is closed, and that President Carter will get a “November surprise” on election day.

This use contrasts with the use of October surprise on the same page of the paper, this time referring to a political endorsement that Reagan received:

Reagan got what his aides call the campaign’s “October surprise” yesterday when Ralph David Abernathy, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and his colleague Hosea Williams endorsed the Republican nominee.

Such an endorsement would hardly be a surprise today, but in 1980 evangelical support for the Republican party was not a given, and Carter, an evangelical Christian himself, was widely thought to have significant support from that quarter.

But with November looming, the surprise once again turned to the release of the hostages. An editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on 24 October 1980 read:

[Carter] has a positive obligation to be alert to any Iranian initiative that might lead to the release of the 52 Americans—and respond to it.

But to the extent possible, he should do his best to prevent any such solution from taking on the appearance of a “November surprise,” not only in the posture he takes in any private negotiations but also in his comments about Iran on the campaign trail, which ought to be muted.

And on 31 October 1980 the Boston Globe reported that Carter campaign officials had all but given up hope that the hostages would be released before the election:

A spokesman for Carter’s national campaign said privately yesterday that even though it would be a big boost for the President, “in my heart, I don’t think the hostages are coming out in time for the election.” Another Carter campaign operative in Washington said privately: “Reagan’s people were talking about an October surprise. I wish we could give them the hostages as a November surprise, but I doubt it.”

Carter’s State Department, however, would continue to work for the hostages’ release, and that happened on 20 January 1981, Reagan’s inauguration day.

After the 1980 election, November surprise faded from memory—just as July was too early for a surprise, November was too late—while talk of an October surprise continued to crop up every four years.

Yet to be seen is whether or not the concept of an October surprise will continue as early voting and vote-by-mail becomes the standard methods of holding an election and the prospect of an event catching a significant number of voters by surprise in the closing days of a campaign becomes less likely.

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Sources:

Anderson, Jack. “2 Big Fish Escape ABSCAM Net” (syndicated). Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), 10 June 1980, 2C. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“GOP Expects ‘Surprise.’” Ithaca Journal (New York), 15 July 1980, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“The Hostage Temptation” (editorial). Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 24 October 1980, 6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Nyhan, David. “Carter’s Pennsylvania Foes Fear an Election-Day Surprise.” Boston Globe, 31 October 1980, 6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2004, s.v. October, n.

Post Wire Services. “Anderson: ‘I Have a Chance.” The Post (West Palm Beach, Florida), 17 October 1980, A2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

———. “Reagan Gets Key Support.” The Post (West Palm Beach, Florida), 17 October 1980, A2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Safire, William. Safire’s Political Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008, 487.

ghoul

Image of a woman discovering a ghoul feeding on a corpse from an 1840 edition of the Arabian Nights

26 October 2020

The word ghoul comes to English from the Arabic ghul, and its definition in both languages is pretty much the same, an evil spirit or creature that robs graves and feeds on corpses. The Arabic noun comes from a verb meaning to seize.

(I haven’t watched the TV series Witcher or read the books on which it is based, but recently while watching a teen play a video game based on those stories, I became aware that in those stories there is a creature called an alghoul that is distinct from a ghoul, or technically it is a ghoul that has been feeding on corpses for so long that it craves fresh meat and so kills its victims itself. But in Arabic the al is simply the definite article, so al-ghul is just the ghoul.)

Ghoul enters English with the first translation of the Tales of the Arabian Nights in 1721. This translation is not directly from the Arabic, but from the French one by Antoine Galland, which was published in 1704–17 and was the first European translation of the collection of stories. From this 1721 English translation:

I ran presently down to the Door, which she left half open, and follow’d her by Moon-Light, till she went into a Burying-Ground, just by our House. I got to the End of the Wall, taking Care not to be seen, and look’d over, and saw Amina with a Goule.

Your Majesty knows that Goules of both Sexes are wandring Dæmons, which generally infest old Building, from whence they rush, but by Surprize, on People that pass by, kill them, and eat their Flesh; and for want of Prey, will sometimes go in to the Night, into Burying-Grounds, and feed on the dead Bodies that have been buried there.

And as with many such words for evil spirits, ghoul developed a figurative sense as well. Here is an early example from Washington Irving’s 1824 Tales of a Traveller:

Wolfgang arrived at Paris at the breaking out of the revolution. The popular delirium at first caught his enthusiastic mind, and he was captivated by the political and philosophical theories of the day: but the scenes of blood which followed shocked his sensitive nature; disgusted him with society and the world, and made him more than ever a recluse. He shut himself up in a solitary apartment in the Pays Latin, the quarter of students. There in a gloomy street not far from the monastic walls of the Sorbonne, he pursued his favourite speculations. Sometimes he spent hours together in the great libraries of Paris, those catacombs of departed authors, rummaging among their hoards of dusty and obsolete works in quest of food for his unhealthy appetite. He was, in a manner, a literary goul, feeding in the charnel-house of decayed literature.

While this type of literary ghoul is more pathetic than frightening, Irving, of course, is well known in the horror genre for his Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a perennial Halloween favorite.

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Sources:

Irving, Washington (as Geoffrey Crayon). Tales of a Traveller, vol. 1 of 2. London: John Murray, 1824, 72–73. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. ghoul, n.

“The Story of Sidi Nonman.” The Arabian Nights Entertainments, vol. 10 of 10. London: W. Waylor, 1721, 123. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Image credit: "Amine Discovered with the Goule," illustration for "History of Sidi Nouman" in The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Edward Forster, trans., G. Moir Bussey, ed. London: Joseph Thomas, 1840, 398–99. Google Books.

paddy wagon

A Portland, Oregon police paddy wagon from 1912

23 October 2020

A paddy wagon is a police van used to transport criminals. The name is commonly thought to come from an association with the Irish, because in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a disproportionately large number of Irish were police in North American cities. This supposition is only partly true. The paddy is indeed a reference to the Irish, but it comes from an unexpected direction.

The first paddy wagons were wheelbarrows, especially small or shoddily made ones. The earliest association of paddy with wheelbarrows comes, surprisingly enough, from Ralph Waldo Emerson. In his 1850 collection of lectures Representative Men, Emerson writes:

But great men: the word is injurious. Is there caste? is there fate? What becomes of the promise to virtue? The thoughtful youth laments the superfoetation of nature. “Generous and handsome, he says, “is your hero; but look at yonder poor Paddy, whose country is his wheelbarrow; look at his whole nation of Paddies.” Why are the masses, from the dawn of history down, food for knives and powder? The idea dignifies a few leaders, who have sentiment, opinion, love, and self-devotion, and they make war and death sacred;—but what for the wretches whom they hire and kill?—The cheapness of man is every day's tragedy.

Exactly what did Emerson mean by his “country is his wheelbarrow”? We can’t be sure, but he was writing at the end of the Great Famine (a.k.a. the Irish Potato Famine), and he could have been referring to the Irish diaspora, with Irish people emigrating abroad with all their possessions in a wheelbarrow. Or he could be referring to a poor Irish farmer, who depends upon his wheelbarrow for his livelihood. In any case, in the years following Emerson’s lecture, we see a spate of references to wheelbarrows being called paddy wagons. Emerson may have created the association of the Irish and wheelbarrows, or perhaps he was just echoing one that was already in circulation. And while Emerson was clearly not using the allusion as a slur against the Irish, others that follow clearly would.

On 9 November 1868, the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel ran this article about a political rally that featured wheelbarrows:

WHEELBARROW
We found the barrow a marvel of the carriage-makers’ art. It was finished in the highest manner. The trunk of a mighty oak had been cleft to provide material for the body of the carriage. As it stood exposed to the admiring gaze of those assembled, one little thought its symmetrical proportions deserved the vulgar epithet of “paddy wagon” of a by-standing Democrat of the old school.

The next year, on 6 December 1869, the same paper runs another story that clearly associates a paddy wagon with the Irish or “Fenianers”:

James Jones and John Wood were each fined ten dollars and costs, for drunkeness. In anticipation of a call for an explanation as to the individuality of the said Jones and Wood, we will state that they are not persons of “long standing” in the community, having just come across the Herring-pond in a Dutch shallop on wheels. The assertion that the boat was a paddy-wagon, and its occupants Fenianers, is groundless, and contradicted in the fact that the parties signed their names Yahmes Yohnes and Hannes Holtz.

And on 12 July 1876, the Milwaukee paper again uses paddy wagon to refer to a wheelbarrow:

William Brotherhood mourns the loss of a one-wheeled carriage of the pattern known as “paddy wagon.” The bow-wheeler was stolen from his new building on Sixth street, near Spring.

Moving west, there is this delightful story in the 1 November 1895 issue of the Idaho Avalanche:

Seventeen years ago, in 1878, Lyman Potter, of New York state, performed the prodigious task of pushing a common “paddy” wheelbarrow across the continent. He started from his home on Dane street, Albany, N.Y., on the morning of April 10, 1878, and arrived in San Francisco on the afternoon of October 5 of the same year, being almost exactly one hundred and seventy-eight days (five hours and three minutes over), in performing the wearisome feat. Potter was a shoemaker, and the trip was the result of a wager made by some friends who believed that such a trip would occupy at least two hundred days. The wager was one thousand dollars, but Potter made between three and five times that sum advertising for different parties along the route. The wheelbarrow was made specially for the use to which it was put and weighed but seventy-five pounds. The distance traveled by Potter was exactly four thousand eighty-five and three-quarter miles.

A paddy wagon is featured again in this Houston Daily Post article from 9 November 1896 that combines a bet with an electoral politics (I have no idea what the Sioux in the sub-headline is supposed to refer to):

ELECTION BETS
Sioux in a Paddy Wagon

Hempstead, Texas, November 7.—The town people at 10 o’clock this morning were treated to an extraordinary free show, the outcome of an election bet. Mr. Ed Jones, an ardent Bryan man, was pushing around the square a wheelbarrow, wherein was located Mr. Deran, the venerable war correspondent of the Galveston News, who had backed up in his judgment the cause of William McKinley. According to the terms of the bet, Mr. Jones not only had to push the wheelbarrow, with a clown cap on his head, but had to continually yell “Hurrah for McKinley!” This, coupled with the fact that about 100 yelling kids followed the procession, made the affair laughable indeed.

The farming journal Poultry West of November 1898 had this advice:

First take everything moveable in hour hen house, then, if the floor is of dirt, get your neighbor’s wheelborrow [sic]; Paddy’s wagon, as a friend of mine always names it, and into it shovel a load of the filthy soil from the hen house floor and wheel it away.

And paddy wheelbarrows were also useful in beekeeping, as evidenced by this from Gleanings in Bee Culture of December 1903:

Try the experiment some time with a small paddy wheelbarrow, with a small wheel, and then with a modern wheelbarrow with a large wheel. I think you will find the push or pull, or, technically speaking, the "draw-bar pull," would be much greater in the first case mentioned than in the last; so that what you actually save in weight would be more than counter-balanced in the extra strength exerted to push the small wheel over obstructions.

This description from a 1904 catalog obliquely refers to paddy wagon without explaining what is meant, but it seems likely that it refers to a wheelbarrow:

The 1904 catalog of the Electric Wheel Co., of Quincy, Illinois, is a handsome and profusely illustrated pamphlet of 50 pages showing almost every variety of wheels for almost every conceivable purpose from light steel wheels for the farm, “paddy wagon,” to heavy, wide trucks for moving the “monarchs of the forest.”

And finally, another election bet involving a wheelbarrow, this time from St. Johns, Oregon on 19 May 1908:

P.J. Peterson and J.S. Downey no [sic] wishing to gamble on the election entered into an agreement that if Word was elected Peterson should give Dawney [sic] a ride in a one-wheeled automobile from Prall’s corner to the post office and return, while if Stevens wins the race Downey is to treat Peterson to a similar ride. There is a Paddy-wagon ride coming in any event.

Meanwhile, municipal services in North American cities were using patrol wagons. These could be for fire departments, as evidenced by this 29 November 1859 article in the New York Herald:

In going to the fire engine No. 38[?] went down Thames street, and becoming unmanageable, ran into the Fire Insurance patrol wagon, whereby James E. Morgan, one of the insurance patrolmen, was knocked down, his right arm was broken, and his face and head badly cut and bruised.

Or they could be for police departments, as this 14 January 1881 article in the Chicago Daily Tribune shows:

The new police patrol wagon for the West Lake street district was exhibited at the City Hall yesterday. It is a strongly-built vehicle, somewhat similar to that used by the fire patrol. It has a gong, steps in the rear, and a large brass rail on each side. It is provided with lamps, lanterns, stretchers, etc., and is a complete and ready police out[fit?]. Superintendent McGarigie[?] is well pleased with it.

And the 1895 financial report for the city of Augusta, Georgia refers to expenses for the maintenance of police department pat. wagons:

Lowrey Wagon Works, stretcher for pat. wagon and repairs............ 28  50

This is obviously a reference to patrol wagon. But this clipping seems to be for brevity in a long list of expenses, and it there are no other uses of pat wagon to be found.

Finally, in the opening years of the twentieth century these separate threads come together. The association of Irish wheelbarrow blends with the patrol wagon driven by Irish-American police officers, and the latter becomes the paddy wagon. It seems likely that patrol wagon gave way to paddy wagon first in jocular speech, referring to the Irish police officers driving it.

From the Menasha Record of Wisconsin of 4 October 1906:

Adrian Clark a resident of Kaukauna at [indistinct] to commit suicide at Appleton yesterday. He doffed his wearing apparel and stutteringly announced his intention to a local bridgetender when the patrol arrived and he was taken in the “paddy wagon” to the police station where he regained his senses.

We get this bit of dialogue from the Chicago Daily Tribune of 12 September 1909:

They had fire sale over to Meals & Keerey’s the other day, and for two bits I got all the good poetry ever writ from Homer to George M Cohan. I think Homer’s swell, don’t you? Gee, where he gets off that spiel about “Now clashed the chariots to the fray”—don’t it make you think of the paddy wagon going down the street to pinch a gambling joint?

And paddy wagon for a police van would quickly become a fixture in English slang.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

“Catalogs Received.” Michigan Farmer, 27 February 1904, 201. ProQuest Magazines.

“City Hall.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 14 January 1881, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“City Matters.” Milwaukee Daily Sentinel (Wisconsin), 6 December 1869, 1. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers.

“Election Bets.” Houston Daily Post (Texas), 9 November 1896, 4. Newspapers.com.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Uses of Great Men.” Representative Men. Seven Lectures. London: George Routledge, 1850, 34. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Fire in Trinity Place—Two Firemen Badly Injured.” New York Herald, 29 November 1859, 5. ProQuest Civil War Era.

“For Cold Weather.” The Poultry West, November 1898, 16. Newspapers.com.

“General Correspondence.” Gleanings in Bee Culture, 31.23, 1 December 1903, 1012. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v. Paddy, n.

“In the Twin Cities.” Menasha Record (Menasha, Wisconsin), 4 October 1906, 1. Newspapers.com.

Liberman, Anatoly, with comments by Stephen Goranson. “Monthly Etymology Gleanings for March 2015, Part 2.” OUPblog, 8 April 2015.

“Local Miscellany.” Milwaukee Daily Sentinel (Wisconsin), 12 July 1876, 8. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers.

“Long Trip in a Wheelbarrow.” Idaho Avalanche (Silver City, Idaho), 1 November 1895, 4. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers.

“Official Reports, City of Augusta, Ga. 1895” (6 January 1896). The Mayor’s Message, Department Reports, and Accompanying Documents for the Year 1895. Augusta, Georgia: John M. Weigle, 1896, 29. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2005, s.v. paddy, n.2.

St. Johns Review (Oregon), 29 May 1908, 3. Newspapers.com

“South Side Wheeling Tour.” Milwaukee Daily Sentinel (Wisconsin), 9 November 1868, 1. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers.

Stockyards Freddie. “‘Beautiful Day in the Country’ Empty Phrase Without the Jug.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 12 September 1909, E3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Photo Credit: unknown photographer, 1912, City of Portland, Oregon Archives.