Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a wandering beggar, adopting tattered clothing and posing as a madman, or shipwreck survivor; thus the shallow brigade, a party or group of beggars.

1839		H. Brandon Dict. of the Flash or Cant Lang. 168: The padding ken [...] is full of prigs and shallow chaps and fellows on the high-fly. [...] Shallow fellows gad the hoof, and fence their cant of togs.
1842		Edinburgh Rev. July 484: ‘Shallow Coves’ are ‘imposters begging through the country as shipwrecked sailors. They generally choose winter, and always go nearly naked. Their object so is to obtain left-off clothes.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 66: Ven I pitches, and they count me the best flag pitcher of all the shallows; I never gets copped by the Bobbies [...] but yet I nails the browns.
1847		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London III 85/1: A Stranger—looked like a shallow cove .
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 146: Did you never hear of [...] shallow coves? Why, sir, that fellow in rags, with the imitation paralysis, who goes shivering along, will have veal for supper tonight.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor (1968) I 415/2: The Shallow got so grannied (known) in London and the supplies got queer, and I quitted the land navy.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 244/2: People got ‘fly’ to the shallow brigade.
1868		‘Six Years in the Prisons of England’ in Temple Bar Mag. Nov. 536: ‘What do you mean by “snow-dropping?”’ I asked. ‘O!’ said he, ‘that’s a poor game. It means lifting clothes off the bleaching line, or hedges. Needy mizzlers, mumpers, shallow-blokes, and flats may carry it on.’ [Ibid.] 537: ‘What do you call a “shallow-bloke?”’ ‘He is a cove that acts the turnpike sailor; pretends he has been shipwrecked, and so on, or he gets his arm bandaged, and put in a sling.’.
1871		G.A. Brine letter July 3 in Ribton-Turner (1887) n.p.: I have been a ‘shallow cove’ (i.e. a member of the land navy; also a ‘highflyer’ (i.e. a begging-letter impostor); a ‘lurker’ (one who is forty different trades, and master of none).
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 262: There were gentlemen in black, swells in light clothes all mixed together with cadgers and ‘shallow coveys,’ i.e., very poorly dressed fellows.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. 9/1: Shallow fellows always fence their gift of togs. Beggars who go half naked always sell the clothes that are given them. [Ibid.] 10/2: The padding ken of Sally Flicks, who’s got a new moniker, which is Lushing Loo, is full of bug-hunters, and shallow coves, and fellows on the high fly. The two crocuses are gadding the pad to fence their gammy stuff.
1882		Manchester Courier 28 Jan. 10/5: There was an inevitable ‘mush-faker’ putting on a new ferule on an umbrella [...] a shallow cove shivering in trousers and shirt.
1886		W. Newton Secrets of Tramp Life Revealed 10: Shallow ... Man dressed in rags – very seedy.
1891		Birmingham Dly Post 31 Mar. 3/4: If a ‘school of shallow blokes’ — that is, a company of dry-land sailors, came to her house for a night [...] that night the ‘shallow blokes’ would be reinforced by an additional chum, rigged out in a dirty old pair of white ducks, a loose blue shirt, a sou'-wester, and minus coat, shoes, and stockings.
1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 240: One day he is a ‘shallow cove’ or ‘shivering Jimmy’; another he is a ‘crocus’ (sham doctor).
1935		X. Petulengro Romany Life 242: A very different person is the shallow-runner. He is the down-and-out you see walking around with his toes out and his coat in tatters.

(UK Und.) acting as a wandering beggar who adopts tattered clothing and poses as a madman.

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 60/1: The Doctor threw up his unprofitable profession and turned out on the ‘shallow cove lay’.

the practice of dressing in minimal rags and appearing ‘blue with cold’ for the purpose of begging; exposed limbs were ‘improved’ with blue powder.

1869		J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 245: The ‘shaller,’ or more properly ‘shallow’ dodge is for a beggar to make capital of his rags and a disgusting condition of semi-nudity [...] pinched and blue with cold.
c.1883		G.A. Brine King of the Beggars 116: [A] thin alpaca coat, full of holes, a thin pair of sailor’s blue dungaree trousers, ditto; no waistcoat, no shirt and no boots — that's the ‘shallow’ dodge.

the practice of dressing in minimal rags and appearing ‘blue with cold’ for the purpose of begging; exposed limbs were ‘improved’ with blue powder.

1846

Swell’s Night Guide 66: Vhy I’ve got as good a flesh-bag as ever stuck to a cove’s prat; but you know they am no use in the shallow fake.

the female companion of a wandering beggar; she specialises in begging for cast-off clothing.

1842		Edinburgh Rev. July 484: ‘Shallow Motts’ are ‘females who, like the Shallow Coves, go nearly naked. [...] They plead long and severe sickness, but only ask for clothes.
1851		Lancaster Gaz. (Lancs) 24 May 2/5: Shallow mots are females who, like shallow coves, go nearly naked [...] Ladies are daily imposed on by females of this description.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 72: Shallow Mot, a ragged woman.

to dress in rags to enhance one’s appeal as a beggar.

c.1780		‘The Fish Girl’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 99: I flash my shallow at the gate every morn.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 315/2: To stand ‘shallow;’ that is to say, to stand with very little clothing on, shivering and shaking. [Ibid.] IV 423/2: Sometimes in the winter, they ‘do shallow’.
1886		W. Newton Secrets of Tramp Life Revealed 17: I asked one of them if he was working the ‘shallow’.
1893		Ripon Chronicle 23 Aug. in ‘A Queer Life Story’ n.p.: [...] By running shallow I mean that he never wears either boots, coat, or hat, even in the depths of the most dismal winter [F&H].
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 27: I should stand a good chance of being buckled and getting a stretch [...] so I only do the shallow on the pinch.

going around half-naked (for the purpose of begging); very poorly dressed; usu. as go on/upon the shallow(s), go shallow.

1839		H. Brandon Dict. of the Flash or Cant Lang. 168: […] To go on the shallows to go half-naked.
1839		W.A. Miles Poverty, Mendicity and Crime; Report 146: ‘I have a better rig than that, I go upon the shallow,’ that is, half naked.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 90: ‘To go on the shallows,’ to go half naked.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 210: ‘To go on the shallows,’ to go half naked.
c.1863		glossary in Occurence Book of York River Lockup in Seal (1999) 37: Dear Dick, I have seen this swag chovey bloak who christened the yacks quick. I gave him a double finnip. I am now on the shallow.
1869		J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 88: To go about half-naked to excite compassion – on a shallow.
1881		Newcastle Courant 2 Sept. 6/5: He doffed his coat, concealed his fiery strummel under a jasey.
1886		W. Newton Secrets of Tramp Life Revealed 16: They will go ‘shallow,’ or nearly naked. They are in search of clothes.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 55: On the Shallow, dressed shabbily on purpose [ibid.] 72: ‘to go on the shallows,’ to go half naked.
1904		Sun (NY) 10 July 29/4: Here is a genuine letter written in thieves’ slang, recently found by the English police [...] I am now flush of balsam, but on the shallow, and don’t go near the boozing kens.
1935		R.T. Hopkins Life and Death at the Old Bailey 63: The following crook’s words and phrases date from the days of the old Old Bailey: [...] to go about half naked – on the shallows.

a fool, a simpleton; thus shallow pated adj., foolish.

1630		J. Taylor ‘A Brood of Cormorants’ in Works (1869) III 12: Yet you shall haue this figure-flinger prate, / To his gull client (small wit shallow pate).
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Shallow-pate a foolish, silly, empty Fellow.
1713		W. King York Spy 41: He has got a great deal of Money, and lives by Gaming and Wheedling young Heirs, and shallow pated Cits.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1788		G.A. Stevens Adventures of a Speculist I 255: Poor men! either wits or wise-ones, you are but purblind and shallow-pated.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1879		Aberden Eve. News 4 Sept. 4/4: ‘The sap-head, the shallow pate, the crazy, crack-brained imbecile’.
1879		Reynolds’s Newspaper 16 Feb. 3/3: A set of shallow-pated [...] fanatics.
1914		R. Tressell Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1955) 491: Ignorant, shallow-pated dolts, without as much intellectuality as an average cat.
1909		Magnet 10 July 16: Everybody knew Bob Fairley as a shallow-pate.

see under screever n.

of a villain, to live quietly, ‘in retirement’, when wanted by the police.

1889		Clarkson & Richardson Police! 296: There was no extravagance in new hats or dresses; in fact, to use the thieves’ parlance, they lived ‘shallow’.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.