Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also stone john, stone kitchen) a generic term for any prison.

1621		Jonson Gypsies Metamorphos’d in Ribton-Turner (1887) n.p.: Preserv’d in picture upon the most Stone Jugs of the kingdome.
1796		see sense 2.
1809		A.B. Lindsley Yankee Notions 44: They are towing him to the stone jug.
1829		Vidocq Memoirs (trans. W. McGinn) II 8: I have promised to blow the gang, and ensure them a lodging in the stone jug.
1839		G. Templeton Strong Diary I 118: Poor Mr. Derby gave a moving description of the uncomfortableness of the various stone jugs, to one of which he was to be confined.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 20 Nov. 2/2: The culprit was finally sent to another kind of stone jug to await her trial.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes I 136: A ‘stone-jug’ well calculated to contain the most ardent and effervescent spirits.
1855		Broadway Belle (NY) 17 Sept. n.p.: [of The Tombs, NYC] ‘Life in the Stone Jug’.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend III 284: Now go home and don’t be a sneak and a fool [...] or I will sell the bed from under your wife’s back and send you to the stone-jug.
1861		M.E. Braddon Trail of the Serpent 28: A great gaunt jail – the stoniest of stone jugs.
1863		G.A. Sala Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous 237: I am sure it was Ketch, for he came afterwards to the Stone Kitchen, wanting to treat all present to Drink.
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 410: I’ll make the town a d—n sight too hot to hold Jake Bowles outside the stone-jug.
1874		Cairo Bull. (Cairo, IL) 5 Nov. 2/3: [from The Graphic, London] Lame Jake, the fidlam-ben, / For shoving spuds, my dears, / Went up the old stone pitcher road.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 May 2/3: The Commissioner [...] gave him three months in the ‘stone jug’.
1885		A. Griffiths Fast and Loose III 158: ‘And where is Leon then?’ ‘Back in the stone jug, I expect.’.
1890		Burnley Express 25 June 3/4: Andrews [...] described to our representative his impression of ‘the stone jug.’ He complained of being put on the treadmill.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 6 May. 3/8: Some warders have been in the habit of regularly communicating with prisoners’ friends outside the gaol, and bringing back ‘stiffs’ or letters to the man in the ‘Stone Jug’ [i.e Darlinghurst Prison].
1906		Manchester Courier 22 June 3/2: You know the origin of the word ‘stone jug’ for a prison [...] In Scotland when rogues and vagabonds wre confined in a stone prison they called it the ‘stone joug’.
1908		G. Seagram Bushman All 268: These granite walls are more to my taste; this is the stone-jug for me.
1909		Age (Queanbeyan, NSW) 12 Jan. 2/6: A bloke has a right to get took to a proper stone jug and not a rotten old wooden kennel.
1914		N.Z. Truth 4 July 4/3: [headline] Liddle Lagged. three Months’ Cold Stone Jug.
1920		Eve, Teleg. (Angus, Scot.) 5 Jan. 4/4: It may even save him from a long term in what he pleasantly calls the ‘stone jug’.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 133: Jugged: Arrested. In the cells. ‘The Stone Jug’ is old thieves’ slang for a prison.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 184: [...] stone jug.–An elaboration of ‘jug,’ [...] not so often used.
1931		‘Experience’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 324: So be warned by my lot, which I know you will not, / An’ learn about stone johns from me.
1946		Western Dly Press 2 Aug. 3/6: A prisoner charged at North London Police Court [...] told the officer who arrested him that he had had enough of ‘the stone jug’.
[1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 227: stone jug A police barracks in England].
1974		H. Levin Bandiet 106: Then there is Central Prison, Pretoria, the maximum security jail for white criminals. [...] Cold Stone Jug is what Herman Bosman called it.

2. Newgate prison, the main criminal prison in London.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Stone Jugg. Newgate. Cant.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: Stone Jug. Newgate, or any other prison.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 258: Newgate in London is called by various names, as the pitcher, the stone pitcher, the start, and the stone jug, according to the humour of the speaker.
1824		History of Gaming Houses & Gamesters 42: [A] slight incarceration in a neghbouring building ycleped the stone jug, i.e. Newgate.
1836		‘The Bastard’s Christening’ in Comic Songster and Gentleman’s Private Cabinet 12: There vos leery Joe, the flue faker, / Who’d just left the Stone Pitcher.
1838		D. Jerrold Men of Character I 251: Never in the Stone Jug? [...] I mean Newgate, and you know it.
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 108: I meant Newgate, for once in the stone jug, it’s mighty good care they take not to part with you there.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open 126: Stone pitcher, Newgate.
1857		in Punch ‘Dear Bill, This Stone-Jug’ 31 Jan. n.p.: Dear Bill, this stone-jug at which flats dare to rail, / [...] / Is still the same snug, free-and-easy old hole.
1897		C. Whibley ‘Jack Sheppard’ A Book of Scoundrels 125: The Stone-Jug was all be-chipped and shattered. From the castle he had forced his way through a nine-foot wall.
1900		Marvel XIV:359 Sept. 10: Incarcerated in ‘The Old Stone Jug,’ or Newgate Gaol.

3. (US Und.) Sing Sing prison, New York.

1859		Matsell Vocabulum 86: stone pitcher Sing Sing.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 227: stone jug [...] Sing Sing Penitentiary, New York.

4. (UK prison) HMP Portland, Isle of Wight.

1907

D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 22 June 12/1: ‘I shouldn’t have thought he’d ha’ been such a wooden-headed chump as to try and escape from the Stone Jug at Portland’.