Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. anyone who operates an informal and poss. illicit business.

1848		W. Armstrong Stocks 7: This class comprehends [...] all those petty operators and non-descripts, who have neither a local habitation or, scarcely, a name, that are dignified by the title of curb-stone brokers [DA].
1870		J.K. Medbery Men and Mysteries of Wall Street 135: The [...] ‘Dead Duck’ is one who is absolutely bankrupt past all recovery. If he haunts the street, it is as a ‘curbstone’ broker.
1880		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 6 Nov. 10/1: nellie’s folly / Am Heiress to three Millions Abandons Her Husband and Children / A Curbstone Broker’s Catch.
1887		in G.D. Atkin House Scraps 92: I’ve seen ’im demeening ’iself by larfin’ with a kerbstone deler.
1904		W.H. Smith Promoters 360: I’ve had hundreds of circulars from curbstone brokers and promoters of all sorts of things [DA].
1910		‘O. Henry’ ‘Strictly Business’ in Strictly Business (1915) 6: Of course Bob Hart, as well as every other [...] professor, curb broker, and farmer, has a play tucked away somewhere.
1916		O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 23 Oct. [synd. col.] [...] which is an indication of the prestige that the curb brokers have gained during the era of their prosperity.
1993		I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 51: A curbstone broker or just curbstoner — or any curbstone business — is one operating informally and perhaps shadily.

2. a street urchin.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1896		Roanoke Dly Times (Richmond, VA) 9 Feb. 6/3: ‘Chimmy,’ said a curbstone cherub, ‘what’s de equator?’.

(US tramp) a whinging beggar.

1937

Literary Digest 10 Apr. 12: Sightseeing punks, mission stiffs, out-and-outs bums, curbstone canaries, psychopaths and heat artists [HDAS].

(US Und.) preaching or using religiosity to obtain money; also attrib.

1891

A. Day Mysterious Beggar 266: I touched his liver, / From my quiver / With my ‘Curbstone Chapel’ whopper. [Ibid.] 268: The Reverend Jeremiah’s a lame slouch, if he can’t duplicate Jen’s cents with ‘Curbstone Chapel’ Dollars!

(N.Z.) a safe job.

1938		Press (Canterbury) 2 Apr. 18: A ‘kerbstone jockey’ served in the A.S.C. [Army Service Corps].
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 65/2: kerbstone jockey a safe job; originally a soldier in transport in WWI, with his horse heavily harnessed.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(US) rough justice, delivered impromptu and without benefit of official warnings of criminal proceedings, typically the policeman’s ‘clip around the ear’ delivered to errant youngsters.

1968		J.Q. Wilson Police Behavior 145: The officer [...] meted out curbstone justice that would instill, if not the fear of God, then at least the fear of cops.
1993		I.L. Allen The City in Sl. (1995) 51: Curbstone justice, before the days of Miranda, was an old-fashioned, informal discipline, meted out by the cop on the beat to kids in poor neighborhoods.

(N.Z.) coarse language, i.e. that ‘of the gutter’.

1905

Truth (Wellington) 11 Nov. 5: Tongue-murdering [...] was [a term] used during the hearing of an assault case at Lyttelton [...] using kerbstone language with much emphasis [he said] [etc.] [DNZE].

tobacco that is extracted from discarded ‘fag-ends’ and recycled in a pipe or ‘roll-up’.

1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 154: These are the shagsters, or hard-up men. Their blend [...] is called hard-up, kerbstone twist, B.D.V. (Bend Down Virginia), and other names.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 278: ‘Could you spare one, mate? I ain’t had a blow since I was knocked off.’ ‘And then it was only kerbstone twist, I suppose.’.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 90: We had to rely on ‘Kerbstone-Mixture’ and ‘Road-bums’ Coronas,’ names given to cast-away cigarette-ends retrieved from ash-bins [...] and on the roadside.
1950		S. Murphy Stone Mad (1966) 142: The bird men would form into shifting groups, puffing away at their pipes or chewing ‘kerbstone plug’.

anyone who appoints themselves a purveyor of knowledge and delivers that knowledge from a position on a street corner or outside a store.

1923		N. Anderson Hobo 9: Around the edges of the square the curbstone orators gather their audiences.
1936		Education and Social Trends 30/1: As the curbstone philosopher, Kin Hubbard, says: ‘It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness.’.
1942		F.W. Reed What Price Freedom 164: If the curbstone philosopher has a philosophy which will curb our wrong trend or redirect it, it will be a simple one.
1955		Progressive Architecture XXXVI 11/2: Architectural firms should not be subjected to the thoughtless and shallow criticisms of every politician and curbstone philosopher.
1993		I.L. Allen (con. 1890s) City in Sl. (1995) 51: A curbstone philosopher was an urban successor to the cracker-barrel philosopher of the country general store.
2004		D. Levinson Encycl. of Homelessness 724/1: Bowery barometer — Curbstone philosopher from the New York main stem. General information bureau but not a highbrow.

a prostitute.

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1939		D. Maurer ‘Prostitutes and Criminal Argots’ in Lang. Und. (1981) 117/1: bladder. An unattractive prostitute. Also [...] curb-sailor.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 640/1: from ca. 1830.

(US) a mongrel.

1935		H.T. Tysell ‘The Eng. of the Comic Cartoons’ in AS X:1 51: Curb setter.
1968		in DARE.

(UK police/und.) a cigarette end.

1950

P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 191/1: Kerbstone Twist. Fag-end.