ALE-DRAPER.—EUGENE ARAM

Your correspondent D. asks whether the word *ale-draper* was ever in "good use." The only place in which I can find it is Bailey's *Dictionary*, where it occurs thus: "Ale-draper (a humorous name), a seller of malt liquors; an alehouse-keeper or victualler." The humour, I suppose, consists in applying to one kind of occupation that which was commonly given to another; in taking *draper* from the service of cloth, and pressing it by force into that of *ale*. That it was ever considered as a word of respectable standing, can hardly be imagined. In such writers as Tom Brown it is most likely to o…