Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a German Jew.

1705		Bosman Description of Guinea Letter XI n.p.: As impertenant and noisy as the smouse or German Jews at their synagogue at Amsterdam [F&H].
1760		C. Johnston Chrysal i 228: I saw them roast some poor smouches at Lisbon because they would not eat pork [F&H].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Smous a German Jew.
1798		‘Llandisilio Hotel’ in Hilaria 128: The man of mosaical blood / Petition’d to have half the nest, / But Smouch was no chum to his mind, / So the poet said, ‘Smouch d’ye see [etc]’.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 42: Here’s bad luck to [...] all the rascally smouches and humbugs of Sheerness!
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1840		R. Barham ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 47: You find fault mit ma pargains, and say I’m a Smouch.

2. (UK/S.Afr., also smouzer) an itinerant Jewish pedlar.

1796		E. Helme (trans.) F. le Vaillant’s Travels I 55: There is at the Cape a species of old clothes men [...] who from their enormous profits and the extortion they practice have obtained the name of Capse-Smouse, or Cape Jews [DSAE].
1806		J. Barrow Travels II 331: His load [...] may consist of fifteen hundred weight of butter and soap, for which he is glad to get from the retail dealers at the Cape, whom he calls Smaus or Jew, sixpence a pound [DSAE].
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 283: We used to lay Moses and his fellow smouches under a constant contribution.
1828		T. Phllips Researches II 96: From the Bechuanas we learned that the proprietors of these wagons were smousers (traders).
1840		Bristol Mercury 14 Mar. 7/3: ‘hat’s only smouchey’s gammon.’ ‘Vat you call me smouchey for, you black willin?’.
1849		E.E. Napier Excursions in Southern Africa II 391: I have turned a regular smoutch.
1887		A.A. Anderson Twenty-five Years in a Waggon I 40: I was not a smouser, the term applied to those who went about in waggons to sell and buy.
1887		Illus. London News 26 Feb. 2: South African [...] slang colloquialisms [...] A settler in his first year is known as a ‘jimmy.’ Food is called ‘scoff’ by natives in the service of Europeans; a trader among the Boers is a ‘smouse’; a drink is a ‘tot’ .
1897		Graaff Reinet Advertiser 23 Aug. in C. Pettman Africanderisms (1913) 454: The life of the smouser is as healthy and interesting as it is adventurous.
1899		G.H. Russell Under the Sjambok 46: Can you not see that I am a smouzer? (trader).
1900		B. Mitford Aletta 21: A travelling smaus, or feather buyer, usually of a tolerably low- type of Jew.
1913		C. Pettman Africanderisms 453: Smouse or Smouser This word [...] brought over from Holland [by] the Dutch Jews. [...] is generally applied to those not of African birth but to Jewish pedlars exclusively in the form ‘A Jew smouse’.
1916		J. Buchan Greenmantle (1930) 261: Then I met a Peruvian smouse, and sold him my clothes and bought from him these.
1937		C.R. Prance Tante Rebella and her Friends (1951) 49: Oom Abram Silberman the ‘smous’ – the donkey pedlar.
1950		L.G. Green In the Land of Afternoon 142: Last century many a smous started with pack donkeys and made a fortune.
1974		(con. 1910s?) A. Brink Looking on Darkness 40: The people approached the smous to complain.
1980		B. Setuke ‘Dumani’ in Mutloatse Forced Landing 64: The smouses, who, unlike the small boys who sell on the various stations [...] are a force to be reckoned with.
1995		C. Schrire Digging through Darkness 163: The family sat at the large one, and the smous at a small table.