1695 SANSON Present State of Persia (tr. Savage) 24–5. The Great Astrologer … is always very near the King, to acquaint him with his good or bad Fortune … He casts his Hand at random upon his Beads, and counts from thence by way of Even and Odd; so that he rules his Predictions, as the Soldiers are wont to do theirs by their Buttons.
1823 MOOR Suffolk Words 377–8. We have a curious old sortes fibularae … by which the destiny of school-boys is fore-shadowed. On a first appearance with a new coat or waistcoat, a comrade predicts your fate by your buttons, thus: sowja, sailor, tinker, tailor, gentleman, apothecary, plow-boy, thief—beginning at top, and touching a button … at each epithet. That which applies to the lower button is your promised or threatened avocation in life … Young ladies gather similar results as to the station and character of their future husbands; by taking hold, in lack of buttons, of a bead of their own or school-fellow's necklace, touching and passing one onward to the end.
1849 HALLIWELL Popular Rhymes 222. In counting the buttons of the waistcoat upwards, the last found corresponding to one of the following names indicates the destiny of the wearer; ‘My belief— A captain, a colonel, a cow-boy, a thief.’
1858 DENHAM North of England (1895, 46) Button Rhyme. A Tinkler, a Tailor, A Soldier, or a Sailor: A rich man, a poor man, A priest, or a parson, A ploughman, or a thief.
1873 N & Q 4th ser. XII 396 [Notts.] These good folk … make plum-jam tarts for single young women and men to eat at wedding parties. The first tart a person eats … is particularly noticed, for according to the number of plum-stones found, so will be years before the person gets married!
1900 N & Q 9th ser. VI 456. When I was a schoolboy in Herefordshire, 1873–4, we used to cast each other's horoscope by means of plum, or cherry, or damson stones, left on our plates at dinner, ‘Tinker, tailor’ being repeated. A variation was ‘This year, next year, some time, never’. This usually referred to marriage or some other desirable event in life.
1904 R. FORD Children's Rhymes 20–1. Touching … the various buttons on the child's dress … ‘A laird, a lord, A rich man, a thief, A tailor, a drummer, A stealer o' beef.’
1908 FORSTER Room with a View xiii. Freddy played at ‘This year, next year, now, never’, with his plum-stones.
1923 [Martock, Som.] I counted they stones out o' plum pie and said to 'em ‘He loves, He don't, He'll marry me, He won't, He would if he could, But he can't’, and then ‘This year, next year, sometime, never’.
1953 Girl, 8 [Manchester] Count the buttons you are wearing and say ‘Lady, baby, gypsy, queen, elephant, monkey, tangerine’.
1954 Girl, 11 [Perth] You count all the buttons that you have on, saying ‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, ploughboy, cowboy, doctor, dentist’.
1988 Girl, 13 [Liss, Hants.] When you're eating those shrivelled-up things—prunes—you go round the stones saying ‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief’, and that is who you're going to marry. Cf. NAILS, specks on finger nails: divination.
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