In slang, a Mickey Finn - or simply a Mickey - is a drink laced with a psychoactive drug or incapacitating agent (especially chloral hydrate) given to someone without their knowledge, with intent to incapacitate them. Serving someone a "Mickey" is most commonly referred to as slipping someone a mickey, but it is sometimes spelled "mickie".
Video Mickey Finn (drugs)
History of term
Michael "Mickey" Finn
The Mickey Finn is most likely named after the manager and bartender of the Lone Star Saloon and Palm Garden Restaurant, which operated from 1896 to 1903 in the Chicago Loop neighborhood on South State Street of Chicago. In December 1903, several Chicago newspapers document that a Michael "Mickey" Finn managed the Lone Star Saloon and was accused of using knockout drops to incapacitate and rob some of his customers. Moreover, the first known written example of the term is in 1915, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which was 12 years after his trial and lends credence to this theory.
The first popular account of Mickey Finn was given by Herbert Asbury in his 1940 book Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld. His cited sources are Chicago newspapers and the 1903 court testimony of Lone Star prostitute "Gold Tooth" Mary Thornton. Before his days as a saloon proprietor, Mickey Finn was known as a pickpocket and thief who often preyed on drunken bar patrons. The act of serving a Mickey Finn Special was a coordinated robbery orchestrated by Finn. First, Finn or one of his employees (including "house girls") would slip chloral hydrate into the unsuspecting patron's drink. The incapacitated patron would be escorted or carried into a back room by one of Finn's associates, who would then rob him and dump him in an alley. The victim would wake up the next morning in a nearby alley and would remember little or nothing of what had happened.
Finn's saloon was ordered to be closed on December 16, 1903. In 1918, he was apparently arrested again, this time for running an illegal bar in South Chicago.
Chicago restaurant poisonings
On June 22, 1918, four people were arrested and over one hundred waiters taken into custody over the apparent widespread practice of poisoning by waiters in Chicago. Guests who tipped poorly were given "Mickey Finn powder" in their food or drinks. Chemical analysis showed that it contained antimony potassium tartrate, also called "emetic tartar", a drug that besides vomiting can cause headaches, dizziness, depression and can be lethal in large quantities. W. Stuart Wood and his wife were arrested for manufacturing the powder, and two bartenders were arrested for selling the powder at the bar at the waiters' union headquarters. Wood sold packets of the powder for 20 cents and referred to it as "Mickey Finn Powder" in a letter to union bartender John Millian. A follow-up article mentions the pursuit of a man named Jean Crones who was believed to be responsible for poisoning over 100 people at a Chicago University Club banquet at which three people died.
Tracing usage of the phrase "Mickey Finn"
The Oxford English Dictionary gives a chronology of the term, starting in 1915:
- The 1915 citation is from a photograph of a saloon in the December 26 edition of the Los Angeles Examiner. In the photograph is a sign that reads: "Try a Michael Finn cocktail".
- The first listed reference as a knock-out drop in the OED: "Wish I had a drink and a Mike Finn for him", is from a March 11, 1924 article in the New York Evening Journal.
- A description of a Mickey Finn is given in the January 18, 1927 issue of the Bismarck Tribune, "a Mickey Finn is an up-to-date variant on the knock-out drops of pre-war days".
- In the September 3, 1927 issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune, the phrase appears in an article on the use of ethylene for artificial ripening of fruit, "Applied to a human, ethylene is an anaesthetic as the old-time Mickey Finn in a lumber-jack saloon".
- In John O'Hara's 1934 novel Appointment in Samarra, a disgruntled headwaiter remarks of a poor tipper, "I'd like to give him a Mickey Finn."
- In Superman Showdown (1942 film), a gangster (who dresses like Superman to rob people and businesses) pockets $5 from his take. The mob boss sees this, hits him and takes it. The Superman impersonator says "Gee boss, it was only a fin". The mob boss replies "Next time it will be a Mickey Finn".
- In the 1946 film 'Three Little Pirates' starring slapstick comedy group The Three Stooges, Moe offers to give a castle guard a Mickey Finn.
- In an episode of I Love Lucy Fred recommends Ricky "slip [Lucy] a Mickey" as he does to Ethel when she's bothering him.
- In the 1976 Columbo episode 'A Matter Of Honor' (episode 35), Columbo says, on examining a drugs cabinet: "Chloral Hydrate? I'll tell you I don't know much about drugs but that's the stuff they put in a Mickey Finn. That's an American expression; Knockout drops." (end of the 56th minute)
- In Erykah Badu's song "Certainly" from the 1997 album Baduizm she sings, "You tried to get a little tricky, turned my back and then you slipped me a mickey."
In the musical Annie, the term "Mickey Finn" is used in the song "It's the Hard Knock Life" to provoke another character.
Maps Mickey Finn (drugs)
References
Further reading
- Asbury, Herbert (1940). Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
- Inciardi, James A. (Winter 1977). "THE CHANGING LIFE OF MICKEY FINN: Some Notes On Chloral Hydrate Down Through the Ages". Journal of Popular Culture. 11 (3): 591.
External links
- Chicago City of the Century - supports Chicago bartender origin
- The Phrase Finder -- thorough history of the phrase
- The Straight Dope -- supporting the knockout explanation
- Word Detective -- supporting the noxious substance explanation, but acknowledging common usage as knockout drug.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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