Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an old, worn-out wig.

1765		Caledonian Mercury 9 Sept. 1/3: These wigs, from the quantity of power lavished upon them, are called Ammunition Caxons.
1776		Chester Chron. 29 Feb. 4/1: [She] brought down my old wig, that’s red as a carrot, And to it she went [...] with dripping and flour did so baste it and frizzle, The hairs all became of a beautiful grizzle [...] With comb, pins and paste [...] She triumph’d at last — and subdued the old caxon.
1788		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn).
1795		Sporting Mag. June VI 171/1: Hodge dipp’d his caxton [sic] ’mid the sack of flour.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1818		Chester Chron. 20 Nov. 4/5: The worthy knight had palmed upon him at Paris an old caxon of Cambaceres’ - which has wrought up his head into an admiration of Bonaparte.
1823		Morn. Chron. (London) 2 Oct. 4/2: His majesty, God bless him, sometimes wears a flaxen caxon; he must be better advised.
1830		Sheffield Indep. 6 Mar. 1/1: What, adds the satirist, is a lawyer, but a black wig and gown, hung up on animated peg, like a barber’s caxon on a block.
1838		Blackburn Standard 7 Mar. 3/4: Why then, by Jupiter, i must have your wig; and snatching off his fine flowing caxon, the thief was out of sight with it in a minute.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1854		Hereford Times 11 Feb. 12/6: Wigs, male and female, cavalier and caxon, Marlborough and monstrous macaroni.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1865		Elgin Courier 22 Dec. 2/5: he had two wigs [...] The one serene, smiling, powdered [...] The other, an old discoloured, unkept and angry caxon.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).