Chapter Hatton to Hawkubites of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Hawk nor Buzzard (Neither). Of doubtful social position - too good for the kitchen, and not good enough for the family. Private governesses and pauperised gentlefolk often hold this unhappy position. They are not hawks to be fondled and petted - the "tasselled gentlemen" of the days of falconry - nor yet buzzards - a dull kind of falcon synonymous with dunce or plebeian. In French, "N'être ni chair ni poisson, " "Neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring."

Hawker's News or "Piper's News." News known to all the world. "Le secret de polichinelle. " (German höker, a higgler or hawker.)

Hawkubites (3 syl.). Street bullies in the reign of Queen Anne. It was their delight to molest and ill-treat the old watchmen, women, children, and feeble old men who chanced to be in the streets after sunset. The succession of these London pests after the Restoration was in the following order: The Muns, the Tityré Tus, the Hectors, the Scourers, the Nickers, then the Hawkubites (1711-1714), and then the Mohocks - most dreaded of all. (Hawkubite is the name of an Indian tribe of savages.)

"From Mohock and from Hawkubite,
Good Lord deliver me,
Who wander through the streets at night
Committing cruelty.
They slash our sons with bloody knives,
And on our daughters fall;
And, if they murder not our wives,
We have good luck withal."