Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus./UK Und., also padden crib, padding box) a lodging house.

1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1839		H. Brandon Dict. of the Flash or Cant Lang. 164/1: Padden Crib – boys’ lodging houses.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 68: It is as square a padding box as ever vos dossed in.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 71: Padding kens, or CRIBS tramps’ lodging houses.
c.1863		glossary in Occurence Book of York River Lockup in Seal (1999) 38: I am at the old padding ken next door to the padding crib.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 73/2: Iv thaw’d a seen’s many ‘padding cribs’ as ’im an’ me, thau’d ne’ar ‘crack’ ’bout thau smiddy-lookin’ ‘shise’ for fixins.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1874		Derbyshire Courier 7 Nov. 8/1: Cant language [...] Lodging house — padding-crib.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 6: Padden Crib - Boys’ lodging-house.

2. (US Und.) a place to hide or to rest.

1983

R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

(Aus./UK Und.) a lodging house frequented primarily by vagrants or thieves; thus padding-ken keeper, padding-ken ranger.

1835		Worcester Herald 26 Dec. 4/3: A pad in can, a lodging house.
1839		W.A. Miles Poverty, Mendicity and Crime; Report 156: He draws up fakements for the high-fly, at the padding kens.
1844		Hereford Times 31 Aug. 2/9: Two men were apprehended by Newent police at ‘a padding-ken,’ on suspicion of robbing the house.
1852		Kendal Mercury 3 Apr. 6/1: The Padding-ken, or cadger’s hotel [...] is situated in the most filthy and disreputable part of the town.
1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue 39: The padding ken of Sally Ricks, called Tiger-face, of Wisbeach, is full of prigs and shallow chaps and fellows on the high-fly.
c.1863		glossary in Occurence Book of York River Lockup in Seal (1999) 38: I am at the old padding ken next door to the padding crib.
1862		Birmingham Dly Post 26 Dec. 3/4: ‘We made our way to London and hung out at a pudding ken [sic] in the Mint (lived at a common lodging-house)’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 8/1: ‘Prick the Garter’ [...] is rather a seedy game, and ‘seedy blokes’ in general they are who drive it — ‘romoneys,’ ‘chanters,’ ‘padding-ken keepers’ and low ‘fly-my-kites’.
1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 5 Oct. n.p.: [headliner] the ‘padding-kens’ of new york.
1871		G.A. Brine letter July 3 in Ribton-Turner (1887) n.p.: Again, Mr. Ribton-Turner and his colleagues will never deal effectually with vagrancy unless they begin at the right end. Let them, or the Legislature, suppress two-thirds of the common padding-kens, or low lodging-houses. These are the great receptacles of vice in its most repulsive aspect.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 101: They were a pair of the veriest padding-ken rangers it were possible to see.
1881		Newcastle Courant 9 Sept. 6/5: She had been on tramp [...] and had clearly mistaken the house for an ordinary ‘padden ken’.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 10: The padding ken of Sally Hicks [...] is full of bug-hunters, and shallow coves, and fellows on the high fly / The rendezvous of Sally Hicks [...] is full of fellows who rob drunken men and beggars who go half dressed to excite sympathy and those who beg as decayed gentlemen.
1889		Clarkson & Richardson Police! 347: The [stolen] articles are generally sold at low public or beer houses, or ‘padding kens’.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 27: I just went to one of my regular padding-kens to sell the mungarly to some of the needies there for nova soldi.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 55: Padding Ken, a thief’s lodging-house.
1898		Hartlepool Mail 4 June 2/4: They put up at the recognised hotel of their class — the ‘padding ken’.
1901		Argus (Melbourne) 20 Sept. 6/4: The haunt of such men is the padding-ken, a side pocket, a flash ken, or a flash panny.
1907		Luton Times 8 Nov. 3/2: In the kitchens I found the character of the lodgers to be of the usual Doss-house or ‘paddng ken’ order.
1912		Hull Dly Mail 12 July 5/2: They were all dirty, as they had stopped [...] in ‘the padding-ken’ (common lodging house).
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 125: I mean a flopping place [...] spikes and padding kens excepted, a tramp knows only two kinds of flopping places: skyppers and ruffers.
1935		X. Petulengro Romany Life 238: They with the discomforts of the paddencan, as they call their humble hotel.

to travel on foot, to walk, esp. as a vagrant or person seeking work, or a prostitute.

1724		‘John Sheppard’s Last Epistle’ in Dly Jrnl (London) 16 Nov. 1: To the Hundreds of Drury I write, / And to all my Filching Companions / The Buttocks who pad it all night, / The Wh-res, the Thieves, and the Stallions.
1790		‘The Bowman Prigg’s Farewell’ in Wardroper (1995) 283: To the hundreds of Drury I write [...] To the buttocks that pad it all night, / Along with a crew of raskallions. [...] Now the bitch pads it in jail / And laughs at the culls she has bit.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London II 281: We may as well pad (walk) it, as Sir Oliver (the moon) is not out to night.
1834		‘Pity the Sorrows of a Poor Old Mot’ in Flash Minstrel! in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) I 103: Pity the sorrows of a poor old mot, / Who can no longer pad it.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1881		Trumble ‘On the Trail’ Sl. Dict. (1890) 41: Flick me some panam and caffar, Bill, for I want to pad my beaters.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 226: I come on a moke. Think I padded it?
1923		P. MacGill Moleskin Joe 51: ‘Paddin’ it, matey,’ was the man’s answer [...] ‘A bit of baccy to spare?’.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 305: The toon seems sinister and alien as ah pad it doon fae Waverley.

see hit the bricks under bricks n.

1. to walk, to travel on foot; thus hoof-padder n., a pedestrian.

c.1780		‘On Newgate Steps Jack Chance was Found’ 🎵 To pad the hoof he [scorned] to tramp, / So he hired a prad and he went on the scamp.
a.1790		‘The Flash Man of St. Giles’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 74: I padded the hoof for many miles.
c.1800		‘Tom the Drover’ No. 30 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: She pads the hoof up and down, and with a beaver castor she goes, / With an India man about her squeeze.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1826		‘Boby & His Mary’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 94: For her he’d nightly pad the hoof, / And gravel tax collect.
1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 111: At length, Charley Bates expressed his opinion that it was time to pad the hoof.
1845		Bell’s Life in London in Fights for the Championship (1855) 199: Thousands had to ‘pad the hoof’ in weariness and alarm.
1853		R.S. Surtees Mr Sponge’s Sporting Tour 312: Oh! old Bugles! old Pad-the-Hoof! old Mr. Funker!
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 254: It’s a short cut to the Satnell Hills, and we can pad the hoof (walk) easier on the turf.
1863		Criminal Life (NY) 19 Dec. n.p.: Em Briggs [...] ‘pads the hood o’er the midnight pave’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 87/1: Sooner than degrade you [...] I would leave all the ‘pals’ and acquaintances of former years, and ‘pad the hoof’ with you alone.
1870		D. Kirwan Palace & Hovel 66: Let us pad the hoof together [...] and we’ll do the best we can.
1872		‘The Way They Emigrate’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 205: Some pad the hoof with patience rare / Across the plains of sage.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 6: Pad the Hoof - To go barefoot.
1884		‘’Arry at a Political Pic-Nic’ Punch 11 Oct. 180/1: Percessions I’ve got a bit tired of, hoof-padding and scrounging’s dry rot.
1887		‘Tramps: Their Ways & Means’ in Wellington Jrnl 17 Sept. 2/6: [T]hey were all ‘skinners’ (out of cash) and would have to ‘pad the hoof’.
1890		Bird o’ Freedom 22 Jan. 7: If it actually panned out into padding the hoof, the mileage was reasonable.
1899		H. Lawson ‘The Songs They Used to Sing’ in Roderick (1972) 385: But Sam Holt makes a pile and goes home — leaving many a better and worse man to pad the hoof out back.
1904		Marvel 12 Nov. 6: You’ll ’ave to pad the ’oof up the clinkers.
1909		H. Thompson ‘Ned Dunne’ Ballads About Business and Back-Block Life 63: He’d [...] ‘padded hoof’ to Albertown.
1911		E.S. Sorenson Dissertation of Travellers in Life in the Aus. Backblocks 68: The man with horses, the man on the bike, and the men who trek per medium of vehicles are just as much travellers as the person who ‘pads the hoof’; but the bush doesn’t recognise them in the same light at all.
1919		J. Buchan Mr Standfast (1930) 528: I’ll have to do a bit of footslogging. Well, I’m used to padding the hoof.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 166: You pad the hoof to Victoria and take the boat train.
1927		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 20 Aug. 11/2: Slanguage [...] Arithy. [...] A bloke pads the ’oof ’tween Melbin and Sydney and dips ’is lid [to] every third tabbie ’e dekkos, ’ow far would he be from, Bourke before he does ’is block? Answer to nearest ’arf tin o’ suds .
1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 211: Padding the hoof – Going by foot.
1941		Western Mail (Perth) 7 Aug. 17s/1: While padding the hoof along the city streets [he] sought to conceal his doscomfiture by pulling the brim of his wideawake well down.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 236: We padded the hoof doon Stokie High Street n Kingsland Road.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 136/2: pat the hoof v. to hurry up, to make haste.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 337: Ah get restless and decide to pad the hoof fae a bit.

2. to leave in a hurry.

1848

‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. IV 46: ‘Pad the hoof,’ – to clear out in a hurry, thief’s slang. [Ibid.] 47: But I know when he spot me zat I must pad my hoof!