What is "crimps"

Usage examples of "crimps".

When the boardinghouse was empty, these crimps weren't above drugging loggers, cowboys, and miners with knockout drops and selling them as sailors.

When no one was around to drug, legend has it, the crimps might sell dead men or even wooden cigar store Indians, wrapped in burlap, to desperate ship captains.

To get these "sailors" to the waterfront, crimps dragged them through the tunnels.

I have no hesitation in saying that I should have been made away with by the crimps, had they discovered me.

Our chief object was, to ascertain the houses of the other crimps, and, as the men knew most of them, having invariably resorted to them at the end of their voyages, we obtained the locality of five or six, all apparently public-houses, but having back premises for the concealment of seamen: all these were carefully noted down.

Long used to reading the subtlest cues to hidden emotion, he glanced sideways at her, remembering what she had once said about the crimps that operated in any deep-water port.

No sooner was I in the place, than three crimps rushed upon me, told me I was a deserter, and their prisoner, and called upon me to deliver up my money and papers.

The others are crimps or their agents, making sure that their advances are covered before the rest of the pay is drunk up.

We were a man short, and the captain went on shore to get one from the crimps, whom he knew very well, and the fellows promised to send one on board the next morning.