Coney-catching Coney-catching Coney-catching is Elizabethan slang for theft through trickery. It comes from the word "coney" (sometimes spelled "conny"), meaning a rabbit raised for the table and thus tame. A coney-catcher was a thief or con man. It was a practice in medieval and Renaissance England in which devious people on the street would try to con or cheat vulnerable or gullible pedestrians. The term appears in "The Taming of the Shrew" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor" by William Shakespeare, and in the John Florio translation of Montaigne's essay, "Of the Cannibals." The term was first used in print by
Coney Island USA Coney Island USA Coney Island USA is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit arts organization founded in 1980 that is dedicated to the cultural and economic revitalization of the Coney Island neighborhood of the Borough of Brooklyn in New York City. Its landmark building in the heart of Coney Island's amusement district houses a theater in which the organization presents "Sideshows by the Seashore", a showcase for performers with unusual talents that runs continuously during the warmer months, as well as the Coney Island Museum. It is also notable as the organizer of the annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade, the first of which