Green’s Dictionary of Slang

cane n.¹

1. (UK Und.) a short house-breaker’s crowbar.

1902		Illus. Police News 15 Mar. 11/3: We then went to another place, tried to force some bars, and so doing broke the ‘cane’ (jemmy).
1930		(con. 1910s) D. Mackenzie Hell’s Kitchen 117: A ‘jemmy,’ [...] is known variously as a ‘cane’ and a ‘stick’.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 251: The bishop, cane, iron, or stick. All mean a jemmy.
1955		B. Hill Boss of Britain’s Underworld 26: A stick or jemmy is a cane [...] Shove a steel tube over the end of a peter cane and you can bust most ordinary safes open with it. If your cane is three and a half fet long and your steel tube is three and a half feet long [...] you have the purchasing power of twenty tons.
1981		(con. 1900–30) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 281: Have you got your cane? Have you got your stick?

2. a bassoon.

1934

Charleston (WV) Daily Mail 31 July 6/8: Musicians have slang terms for every instrument [...] Cane – bassoon.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

cane nigger (n.) [SE (sugar)cane + nigger n.¹ (1); i.e. stereotyped image of a cane field worker]

a cheerful person.

1889–90

Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.

cane oil (n.) [SE cane oil, liquor of the sugarcane]

(W.I.) rum.

1970

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

In phrases

varnish the cane (v.) (also varnish the stick) [pun on SE/stick n. (1a)]

(US) of a man, to have sexual intercourse.

1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS.
1992		(ref. to 1909) Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore I 580: A seven-stanza text [...] by a Texas ranger, W.C. Brach, at San Antonio, Texas, probably about 1909. This is of particular interest for its unique stanza 2, unknown elsewhere: ‘I stepped into a saloon and called for a glass of beer, I hadn’t had my cane varnished in just about one year. / I went into a sporting-house, was run by Nellie Bly, / And I told her I’d like to get some of that root, hog or die’.