Green’s Dictionary of Slang

begging; thus grub-cadging, begging house-to-house for food; cadging house, a beggars’ dwelling place.

1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry II vi: Come, here’s the ould toast: – ‘Success to Cadging’.
1835		Duncombe Dens of London 23: [chap. title] The Cadging House.
1839		H. Brandon Dict. of the Flash or Cant Lang. 162/1: Cadging – begging.
1848		Sinks of London Laid Open 28: Cadging [...] was gone to the devil! He had been out ever since the morning, and had not yet broke his fast.
1853		Western Times 23 Apr. 5/4: Undertaking to teach him the catechism in the ‘vulgar tongue,’ of which he had got a little smattering in some of the cadging houses.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 344: I do pretty well at cadging [...] I live pretty well, and it’s middling jolly.
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 355: He urged me [to] go ‘a grub-cadging,’ i.e., to beg broken victuals at small cottages and gentlemen’s lodge-gates.
1869		J.C. Parkinson Places and People 215: He was always about Grosvenor and Berkeley squares, and held horses, opened cabs, and did a little cadging when the opportunity presented itself.
1873		J. Greenwood In Strange Company 17: What one in vain looked for was the ‘jolly beggar’ [...] who scorns work because he can ‘make’ in a day three times the wages of an honest mechanic by the simple process of ‘cadging’.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 40: Daintily picking a supper from among the ‘broken victuals’ turned out of the ‘cadging bag’.
1893–5		H. Lawson ‘Two Sundowners’ in Roderick (1972) 100: He let Swampy do the cadging for several days thereafter.
1918		K.F. Purdon Dinny on the Doorstep 105: Brigeen’s as apt as not to be out cadging.