The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-05-28
Slang Expression That is Talk
 of the Day
USED IN NUMEROUS WAYS
Circus Man Claims It, but Horsemen, Photographers, Actors and Others Object-A Familiar Term
 Among "Rounders."
From the Baltimore Herald.

baseball fan
 'Twenty-three means being tin canned " says he. "Of course, you know that 'tin-canned' among ball players means being fired released.
 " 'Twenty-three was first used as slang expression through the south and southwest. It Is a modification of the slang phrase Eighteen and five.' Eighteen and five was it's first form. and it was sprung by a transforming ten, twent and thirt' repertory company touring the jaythawlx watertank towns of the south and southwest.
 '1t seems the manager of the company was a kind-hearted guy, and did not want to bruise any ones feelings He never fired any of the bunch but had habit of piling on the extra parts in the plays and keeping the ghost from walking in the direction of the actor or actress he want ed to get rid of
 "The man or. woman who was in bad favor was ordered by the manager to study additional parts until the number reached IS, and at the same time the man. ager kept putting off salary day. It took about five weeks for the artful proprietor of the show to work up the list to tlSlltRn DdTtS. 10AI I1ed0t i've WePHS UD- paid salary.
 By that time the object of the scheme reached the subject and he or she quit the show So in that company it got to be a byword. When one of the troupe fell down or failed to make a hit the rest of they would pass out the word IS and , for you It meant that there were IS parts and , lean weeks coming. and the actor had better leave.
 t,fIrS a,al E fe. be too long and someone did an adding stunt and brought out 2S.'
 'Trhe theatrical company left '23 along the lines of the railroad and other show people picked it up, and after a year or so 1t got to New York and Boston. Rac- ing men took hold of it and used it to designate a horse that was dead one ''
 Racing Mans View.
 The racing man takes exceptions to the above elucidation of the problem of dis covery. Not a bit like it." says he, "23 for that.
 Now I'll tell you just where it did come from" he asserts with postiveness. 'It was this way. There were 2S horses entered for the Suburban handicap over in New York and the limit was %. They picked out the numbers to race under and of course, one was 23. That horse was ruled out, marked off the list It did not run.
 50 in racing parlance '2s' came to mean the horse that had to quit the track and so was used to describe the skate that wouldn't do.
 Don't let them fool you with any pipes about actors having originated the word; an actor never originates anything. He is only a repeater"
 Authority No. 3 is the press agent of a circus. For more than two decades he has illuminated the columns of the coun- try papers and thrillers and the canvas show has trailed him all over the coun- try. This genius of lurid phrase and allur- ing paragraph claims for rne circus man the credit of "23'
 "It's as much the circus mans express sion as Hey Rube' " says ne 'It is as old as that slogan You know whenever a circus man runs mp against a tough crowd in a hard town. is getting the worst of the mix-up and needs assist ance. he cries. Hey Ruber That is the signal for every circus man within hear ing to rush to the rescue with tent stake or anything he can grab.
 " Twenty y-three is eighteen or twenty years old. I heard it soon after I went into business. Tn the ring show there used to be twenty-three turns. and after the last one the boss canvasman had to work the boys lively to get the tents uOWn ana pack Vnl11SS OltO une WhSOIlS.
 Used in Circus.
 ''That last feature, No. g, was the Ro- man chariot race. During the perform ance the canvasmen always sleep, par tcularly If she show was playing one day stands During the evening you'll find them lying around on the hay and straw in the various tents.
 'eWhen the Roman chariot race started the cry '2g was sounded through the tents and over the lot to arouse the can vasmen and get them up ready for the heavy work just as soon the event was over. 1t meant get out just as it does now, and it was adop,ed by the cir- GUS men generally as a way of telling a companion that they were through with him."
 No New Yorker would ever admit that anything which caught the American peo- ple could have come from anywhere but Broadway. So the metropolis has appro- priated "23" as the product os condi- tions on its best known thoroughfare. Here is how New Yorker tells it:
 "The slang phrase came into use when the mounted squad of policemen were first stationed in Union and Madison squares to regulate the traffic. Each man was given a whistle and drivers were taught to obey the signals One blast of the whistle meant Stay where you are. Two shrieks constituted an order to go ahead. When the copper blew three times he told you to back up If he blew twice shrilly and three immediately after, the driver understood he must back up and get out lively.
 50 the cabmen took it up and shouted 23' at an obstructor of the traffic in any part of the city. Naturally. from Broad way the expression spread over the country"
 Another Theory.
 Another New Yorker advances a second theory. He declares that in the alcoholic ward of Bellevue hospital the padded cell for the worst cases is No. 23. Thus when after hard night. the sufferer from the effect of high and low ones lands in Bellevue he sees his finish in "23.''
 Jack O'Bren, the pugilist, was refused admittance to twenty-three New York hotels, is advanced by an ingeniuos delver into the mystery of "23' The only diffi- culty with the plausibiity of this is that "23'' was a part of the slang tongue be- fore O'Brien hit New York and he was not thrown out of twenty-thre places.
 Still another explanation is that party of westerner started to drink up' Broadway They counted each successive bar. and as they advanced to the last they hailed the bartender with ''23" All hands then passed away and were bundled in cabs and sent home.
 One of the most commonly accepted ideas of the derivation credits the coining to the evolution of a telegraph signal. The story goes that old time operators used s.23" to order interrupters off the wire. Among railroad train dspatchers