Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a dismissal from an office or job; thus (mid-19C) get one’s mittimus, to be dismissed, to be killed, to be sent to prison; also as v., to dismiss.

1596		Nashe Have With You to Saffron-Walden in Works III (1883–4) 136: Out of two Noblemens houses he had his Mittimus of ye may be gone.
1605		Life and Death of Gamaliel Ratsey 27: But the foot-post (or rather picklocke) hearing his mittimus, was blanke and cold at heart, and had not a worde to say.
1611		L. Barry Ram-Alley III i: How? I tell thee Iustice Tutchin, not all Thy Baylifes, Sergants, busie Constables, Defeasants, warrants, or thy Mittimusses, Shall saue his throte from cutting.
1621		Rowley, Dekker & Ford Witch of Edmonton V i: Your Mittimus shall be made thither, but your own Jaylors shall receive you. Away with here.
1627		J. Taylor ‘An Armado’ in Works (1869) I 92: The Mittimus, a dangerous Barke, whose word is, At your perill.
1632		T. Nabbes Covent Garden II ii: Thy dullnesse is capable of no more then to frame Hetroclites from mens names, and scribble a warrant or a mittimus by a president.
c.1642		T. Killigrew Parson’s Wedding (1664) IV ii: Make his Mittimus to the Hole at New-gate.
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 63: Having sworn, my Mittimus was made, and therewith sent to Prison.
1691		‘Penance’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 178: And when he comes before my Lord, / And hath no ready Tale, / His Mittimus is straight-waies made.
1703		Hell Upon Earth 2: A Schollar in Iniquity comes to Newgate, by Vertue of a Mittimus.
1715		S. Centlivre Gotham Election I i: We wou’d have had the Mayor made his Mittimus, and zend him to a Gaol.
1725		J. Sheppard Sheppard in Egypt 28: He call’d for Pen, Ink, and Paper, to make our Mittimus’s to Newgate.
1731		Fielding Letter Writers III x: A Mittimus! for whom?
1742		Fielding Joseph Andrews (1954) II 154: The justice [...] ordered his clerk to make the mittimus.
1756		W. Toldervy Hist. of the Two Orphans III 25: Well, you rascal, what have you to say for yourself, that the mittimus should not be made?
1764		Foote Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 164: I would have mittimus’d the rascal at once.
1794		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Subjects for Painters’ Works (1794) II 285: His mittimus would soon be made.
1795		J. O’Keeffe Life’s Vagaries 41: Enough, write his mittimus.
1821		‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 170: The handkerchief was dropped, and Tarpaulin fell. ‘By Jasus he has got his mittimus,’ said Gram.
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 261: No claim to a man whose mittamus [sic] were put in to my awn hands? Go, hang thsel’, Rob.
1864		G.A. Sala Quite Alone I 5: Aggravated assaults, says the magistrate, as he signs their mittimuses, are not to be tolerated.