Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to work as an itinerant Jewish pedlar; thus smousing n. and adj.

1897		Graaff Reinet Advertiser 23 Aug. in C. Pettman Africanderisms (1913) 454: That kind of thing soon knocked the smousing man over.
1913		C. Pettman Africanderisms.

2. to solicit business, esp. in a demeaning manner; thus smousing/smouthing n.

1839		T. Shone Diary 4 May n.p.: We met John a coming back, he was going a smouthing [DSAE].
a.1862		J. Ayuff Journal of ‘Harry Hastings’ (1963) 77: You want to stop there to trade, or I should say smouse, for that’s the Dutch word for trade [DSAE].
1887		S.W. Silver and Co’s Hbk to S. Afr. 35: They reared flocks, grew wool, went ‘smousing,’ and made themselves merchants [DSAE].
1911		D.B. Hook ’Tis but Yesterday 16: Jan Hofmeyr [...] moved north by slow degrees, trading or smousing, following the business of a hawker [DSAE].
1955		D. Abelson in Saron & Hotz Jews in S. Afr. 341: Max Rose started life at the Cape in the traditional way by smousing, but soon gave that up.
1968		D.R. Edgecombe Letters of Hannah Dennison 235: He had opened a shop in Graaff-Reinet in 1824 and ‘smoused’ about the country [DSAE].
1977		G. Butler Karoo Morning 132: He loaded the Whippet up with samples of butter paper and stationery, and albums of H.M.V. records, plus an older child as gate-opener, and went smousing among the richer farmers [DSAE].
1985		in Sun. Times (Johannesburg) 1 Sept. 4: Until now, we have been in the habit of smousing, drinking, pick-pocketing, preaching, and generally enjoying ourselves on trains [DSAE].

3. to obtain in an underhand way.

1977

Het Suid-Western 21 Dec. n.p.: They wanted to sell us the pictures they had smoused during the rescue – and that at the world’s most inflated prices [DSAE].

4. to search out bargains.

1991

G. Butler Local Habitation 190: We broke journeys [...] to smouse around second-hand and antique shops in towns and dorps en route. One develops an eye for period furniture.