butties

Updated: June 19, 2025

They engage and pay the colliers in some pits, in others the owners deal direct." "And what is a 'tommy-shop'?" "'Tommy' is the local word for 'truck' paying in kind instead of in money. You see, the butties and the owners between them used to own the public-houses and the provision-shops, and the amount of coin of the realm the men got in wages in the bad old times was infinitesimal.

Mrs. Humphry Ward - Sir George Tressady — Volume I