We use it in Zild (spelt "Caboodle"), but as Dave Wilton suggests it's gotta be American in origin. So no takers for an argument here, BYB.

However, I can tell you that the use of "kit" was in Zild in 1862. An American miner called Reilly found a lot of gold in the Molyneaux (Clutha) River and was reported in the Otago Witness being asked if the 62lb weight of gold he dumped on the bank counter in Dunedin was all he had. He apparently replied that what was there was "the whole kit".

Oddly enough, a new gold rush to just south of what is now Cromwell started the very same day ...

Reilly must have been a tough bird - he carried that 62lb of gold some 120 miles over very rough and in some cases non-existent tracks. I wish I could say he profited from it, but there is a report from about five years later which had him rowing a dinghy in Timaru harbour for a living when he drowned.


The idiot also known as Capfka ...