Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to rob someone on the highway.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 274: toby: to toby a man, is to rob him on the highway .
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1812].
1848		Ladies’ Repository (N.Y.) Oct. VIII:37 317/1: Tobe [sic], to rob; to knock down.

2. (UK tramp) to walk the roads as a tramp.

1933

E. Blair ‘A dressed man and a naked man’ in Adelphi Oct. in Complete Works X (1998) 323: Fifty years I’ve tobied it / For these clothes upon my back.