Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a street-walker, thus v. to work as a protitute.

1851		‘Greenhorn’ [G. Thompson] Bristol Bill 44/2: [D]own, down she sank into the vilest holes of a crowded city, the companion of thieves and murderers, and rejoicing in the flash appellation of ‘Gookin Peg’.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1967		(con. 1890s) in S. Harris Hellhole 161: Criminals whom Molly still designates by the names with which she first learned to identify them: ‘Cats’ or ‘gooks’ – the small-time madams she presently meets in the House of detention.