_Etrangler un perroquet_ is to drink a glass of absinth, the allusion being to the colour (green), and also, it is said, to the sensation in swallowing the absinth, and to other minute points. A prostitute is the _hôtel du besoin_, a _Louis-quinze_, and also the _bourre-de-soie_, in allusion, it is said, to murmured offers and a silk dress; the brothel is _le cloaque_. In Venetian slang a promise is called a shadow. In Bavarian cant a playing card is _karzerweg_--the road to prison.
Very strange, remote, and bizarre are some of these slang synonyms, full of coarse ironies and jests. _Paradouze = paradis_ (_douze_ instead of _dise_); _saucisse = moi_ (by way of _moi-s-aussi_); _crottard = trottoir_; _blanchir du foie_ = to intend betrayal (play on _foi_); _perdreau = pederaste_ (_pedro-pédero_); _herbe sainte = absinthe_; _être dans l'infanterie_ = to be pregnant (_enfanter_); _moulin à vent = derrière_; _pape = verre de rhum_ (_Rome_); _veronique = lanterne_ (_verre_); _vert-de-gris = absinthe_ (play on _vert_ and _verre_, with allusion to its deleterious properties); _demoiselle du Pont-neuf_ (that all may go over) = prostitute; _apaier_ = to assassinate; _boire dans la grande tasse_ = to drown oneself; a knife is a _lingre_ (from Langres, the French Sheffield); the _souteneur_ (a prostitute's bully) is called by the English word _fish_, or some similar name (_poisson_, _goujon_, _baraillon_, _maquereau_); the prostitute is called _morue_, and _Banc de Terre-Neuve_ is applied to that portion of the Parisian boulevards lying between the Madeleine and the Porte Saint-Denis.
Sometimes the slang of criminals, like that of the rest of the world, commemorates an historical fact. To dethrone in France is _juilletiser_. The sun is _le grand Jablo_, Jablochoff's electric lamps having been the first used to illuminate Paris. A _coup de Raguse_ is a defection, in allusion to the Duke of Ragusa. In Italy a drunkard is called a Frenchman, a beggar a Spaniard, a card-sharper a Greek. In Spain a thief is called a _Murcio_, from the province of Murcia.
Words are frequently abbreviated. As examples, Lombroso mentions _tra = travail_; _ces mess = ces Messieurs_ = the police; _chand = marchand_; _lubre = lugubre_; _abs = absinthe_; _avoir ses aff = avoir ses affaires_ (_menstrues_); _mac = maquereau = souteneur_, of a prostitute.