Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to sponge, to swindle.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: mace to cheat.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1819		P. Egan Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 14: Jew rampers, who are endeavouring to mace the Swell Benjamins.
1828		Lytton Pelham III 306: To swindle a gentleman, did not sound a crime, when it was called ‘macing a swell.’.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 61: MACE, to spunge, swindle, or beg in a polite way.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
1873		Sl. Dict.
1885		Dly Gaz for Middlesborough 28 Aug. 3/2: Fancy him being so soft as to give the jay a quid back out of the ten he’d maced him of.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Straight Tip’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 176: Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack; / Or moskeneer, or flash the drag.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 48: Mace, to sponge or swindle.
1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1982) 101: Him as maced the bookies in France an’ shot the nark in the boat.
1908		K. McGaffey Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xii: Wilbur [...] told me to mace every John I came across on the road for as many [tickets] as he would stand for.
1909		D. Stewart Dead Man’s Gold in Illus. Police News 10 Apr. 12/1: ‘You’ve been doing a bit of macing [...] you’ve worked a bit of stiff’.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 260: I could never mace – bamboozle – the fences wi’ one hand, while I kep’ a stew o’ mysteries, running to thousands and thousands – all to be split up small among a everlasting daffy o’ the boys – with the other.
1915		Lincoln (NE) Daily News 2 Aug. 3-A: Many a good tap would come acrost f’r de macer if he wasn’t gittin’ maced so of’n by zobs dat he knows, dressed-up rummies, dat sink de pick into him ev’ry time he goes out t’ take de air.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 96: Mace – to get something for nothing [...] to steal or cheat.

2. to fail to pay one’s debts; thus give (something to someone) on the mace, to obtain goods by persuading the shopkeeper to extend credit that one has no intention of paying.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 252: mace: to mace a shopkeeper, or give it to him upon the mace, is to obtain goods on credit, which you never mean to pay for.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1812].
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 171: ‘Give it him (a shopkeeper) on the mace,’ i.e., obtain goods on credit and never pay for them; also termed ‘striking the mace’.
1868		Temple Bar xxiv 535: Macing means taking an office, getting goods sent to it, and then bolting with them; or getting goods sent to your lodgings and then removing [F&H].
1879		Cincinnati Enquirer 7 Sept. 10/7: Mace, Bilk, Give, Roast, Skin—Are all synonymous to the verb ‘to beat,’ and are terms that have been felt by many hotel-keepers, saloonists, boarding houses, &c., as they are about the only terms they could ever get out of some of the graceless scamps of the profession, who ‘flew’ without liquidating the claims against them.
1890		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Unexpected Places’ Sporting Times 8 Mar. 1/3: The rattler how ingeniously he maces; / He’s angelic in appearance, but this very sudden clearance / Shows that angels visit unexpected places.
1935		Sun (N.Y.) 19 Feb. 28/1: ‘Macing’ a car is the term for a purchase by the dealer from an individual upon a small cash payment and a series of notes which he has no intention of meeting.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 6: Mace (or maced): Goods obtaoined on credit with no intention of paying.

3. (US) to beg or demand (usu. money) from.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 252: mace: [...] To spunge upon your acquaintance, I by continually begging or borrowing from them, is termed maceing, or striking the mace.
1859		see sense 1.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1886		Lantern (N.O.) 6 Oct. 2: A bum by the name of Moore maced him for some money.
1896		F. Hutcheson Barkeep Stories 10: ‘A guy comes in here [...] an’ maces me for a drink’.
1907		D. Runyon ‘The Defence of Strikerville’ in From First To Last (1954) 12: We’d maced about everyone we could think of.
1907		Sun (NY) 24 Feb. 8/3: Waiting to mace somebody for the price of uppercuts and chicory at Jimmy’s.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 146: He had seen the Ponies come scooting into the Home Chute, and then he had hurried in to mace his Bit from Ikey.
1939		Wodehouse Uncle Fred in the Springtime 52: It was hopeless, he felt, to expect to mace any one given person for a sum like two hundred pounds.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 332: macing: Getting something for nothing.

4. (UK Und.) to avoid paying one’s train fare.

1929

C.G. Gordon Crooks of the Und. 226: To ‘mace’ or ‘jim,’ according to them, is to travel by train without paying fare.