knobsticks

After these _perrillos_ [ "little dogs"] are seen the _porras_ [ "knobsticks"], which are certain very long, hollow shoots of a yellow herb with a ball at the top, and which float on the water.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 16 of 55 1609 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century Emma Helen Blair 1884

So he stood still again, vouchsafing no answer, but a short nod of recognition to the few men who knew and spoke to him, as the crowd drove out of the millyard at dinner-time, and scowling with all his might at the Irish 'knobsticks' who had just been imported.

North and South Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1837

After these perrillos [ "little dogs"] are seen the porras [ "knobsticks"], which are certain very long, hollow shoots of a yellow herb with a ball at the top, and which float on the water.

History of the Philippine Islands Antonio de Morga 1597

"Lowrie said you had vitriol and knobsticks," he faltered.

That Lass o' Lowrie's: A Lancashire Story 1877

I did it they'd wait for me coming home and give me the knobsticks.

Patience Wins War in the Works George Manville Fenn 1870

Folk would go with them if they saw them striving and starving wi 'dumb patience; but if there was once any noise o' fighting and struggling -- even wi 'knobsticks -- all was up, as they knew by th' experience of many, and many a time before.

North and South Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1837

They would try and get speech o 'th' knobsticks, and coax 'em, and reason wi ''em, and m'appen warn 'em off; but whatever came, the Committee charged all members o' th 'Union to lie down and die, if need were, without striking a blow; and then they reckoned they were sure o' carrying th 'public with them.

North and South Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1837

No! no! if it's only for the recollection of the way in which you've used the poor knobsticks before now, I say No! to your question.

North and South Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1837

I could have wished to have had other talk about me in my latter days, than just the clashing and clanging and clattering that has wearied a 'my life long, about work and wages, and masters, and hands, and knobsticks.'

North and South Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1837

'No! I'd be thankful if I was free to do that; it's for to keep th' widow and childer of a man who was drove mad by them knobsticks o 'yourn; put out of his place by a Paddy that did na know weft fro' warp. '

North and South Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1837