Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus. und.) a sneak-thief who operates in hotels or lodging houses; thus hotel barbering.

1871		Ballarat Star (Vic.) 28 Aug. 2/5: The prisoner, it appears, is respectably connected in England, and is described by the detectives as being about the cleverest ‘hotel barber’ ever known in the city.
1879		Maitland Mercury (NSW) 16 Sept. 2/5: At the City Police Court yesterday [...] Cornelius Goulden and Benjamin Adams, the ringleaders of the gang of thieves technically known as ‘hotel barbers,’ that have for some weeks past committed numerous depredations in Melbourne, were brought up on several charges of larceny.
1879		Riverine Herald (Echuca, Vic) 18 Jan. 3/2: As he had already served a sentence for hotel ‘barbering,’ Mr. Panton thought that the heaviest sentence he could give, namely, two years’ imprisonment, would not, be too much .
1881		Age (Melbourne) 4 Nov. 2/7: An hotel sneak, better known to the police as an ‘hotel barber,’ named Chas. Milude was charged at the City Court on Wednesday.
1890		Melbourne Punch 2 Jan. 9/4: A woman ‘hotel barber’ has been sent to gaol for a short term.
1900		Geelong Advertiser (Vic.) 3 Feb. 1/4: Henry Teagno, who is regarded by the detective police as an unusually clever member of the hotel barbering fraternity, got 12 months’ imprisonment to-day.
1909		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Aug. 1/8: A fine lesson to local pub barbers is ‘The Hotel Thief;’ now being screened at the Town Hall, Fremantle.
1919		V.J. Marshall World of Living Dead (1969) 129: [E]ven the household barber or dwelling dancer (the transient lodger who ‘tears up’ the whole abode) [...] never hesitate to express their contempt for the more roughly inclined of the profession.
1920		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 14 Jan. 6/5: One can pick them out any hour of the day in East-street - hotel barbers, thugs, confidence men - and from what present writer can see Rockhampton seems to be a good breeding spot for this type of undesirable.
1932		Sun. Mail (Brisbane) 13 Nov. 20/7: Still moving up the scale, we have the hotel ‘Barber’ [...] the gentleman who ransacks hotel rooms while the guests are absent, often getting surprisingly large hauls of jewellery and money [...] ‘Barbers’ are frequently themselves guests [...] getting the general lay-out of the rooms fixed in their minds before commencing operations.
1934		Dly Standard (Brisbane) 2 May. 5/1: A youthful hairdresser, familiarly known as a ‘pub-barber,’ because of an habitual predilection for ransacking guests rooms, at hotels, was sent to gaol for six months.
1946		Newcastle Sun 11 Nov. 2/3: Detective Gordon McLean described Spagnola as a ‘hotel barber’ that is, as a stealer from lodging rooms .
1953		Argus (Melbourne) 31 Oct. 9/6: The Petty Thief [is] usually a ‘hotel barber’ (a person who steals from hotel rooms), bag-snatcher and general opportunist.
1972		Meanjin 149: A barber is a person who clips the rooms of motels and hotels.
1980		Canberra Times (ACT) 14 Aug. 10/4: Hotel and motel proprietors and guests should be on the lookout for an active hotel barber (a person who thieves from hotel rooms).

one who stays in hotels and then leaves without paying the bill.

1882		A. Trumble Crooked Life in Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 29 July 3/2: As for the beats who come to prey upon us Instead of our guests [...] The law as it now stands reaches people who run up big bills for rooms, dinners, wines, etc., and then do not pay.
1897		Eldridge & Watts Our Rival, the Rascal 244: The professional ‘hotel beat’ is ordinarily a well-dressed man [...] He may even attempt to get a night's lodging and a few meals, with the intention of slipping away without paying his bill .
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

(US) a hotel thief.

1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 29 July 6/1: The hotel buzzards form an extensive and dangerous class of metropolitan crooks.
1888		N.Y. Times 3: The culprit [caught stealing in a hotel] – in police parlance designated a ‘hotel buzzard’ – was locked up in the Tombs.

(N.Z. prison) a prison.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 90/2: Hotel California n. a prison.

(Aus. und.) a sneak-thief working in hotels.

[1856		N.Y. Times 5 Dec. 3/4: The arrest of a hotel sneak thief [...] for stealing an overcoat from the Astor House was published].
1869		Philadelphia Inquirer (PA) 11 Sept. 3/3: Duing part of his nefarious career he has the ‘pal’ of Eph. Pharo, a celebreated ‘hotel sneak’.
1877		S. Bourke and Mornington Jrnl (Vic.) 4 July 4/1: A daring theft was committed at the Australian Hotel Bridgeroad, Richmond, on Tuesday evening by a female belonging to the class known as hotel sneaks.
1878		Chicago Trib. 21 June 8/2: The police concluded that a gang of hotel sneaks had arrived in town.
1883		Eve. Bulletin (Maysville, KY) 27 Aug. 1/5: John, alias ‘Nosey’ O’Brien, one of the most noted hotel sneaks and pickpockets in the country [...] was arrested.
1886		Manaro Mercury (NSW) 9 Jan. 3/5: During Christmas week, two or more hotel sneaks prized open Mr. Dodd’s hotel box whilst the publican was busy, and stole the contents.
1890		Dunkirk Eve. Obs. (NY) 16 June 1/2: A respectably dressed Scoundrel. An Amewrican hotel sneak has been arrested in London.
1902		Express and Teleg. (Adelaide) 1 July 1/6: He was found guilty and was ordered six months’ imprisonment, the S. M. remarking that he was nothing but an ‘hotel sneak’ .
1905		Wash. Post (DC) 6 Aug. 12/6: Spike McGunn, who used to be a swell hotel sneak.
1911		Hancock Democrat (Greenfield, IN) 10 Aug. 2/3: He was a hotel sneak with many aliases, and had done time in half the prisons of England.
1923		Sth Eastern Times (Millicent, SA) 27 Mar. 4/5: Sneak thieves, for instance, are of many different kinds, such as hall sneaks, hotel sneaks, band sneaks, etc.