GR translation: hustlers in city clothes

[David Morris]

For these purposes it might as well mean prostitute, bu more generally it
might be akin to a scam artist: someone selling something illicitly.

On Sun, Mar 27, 2022 at 4:24 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Making yet another pass through GR, alongside the revised 2nd edition of
> the published Chinese translation.
>
> P3.10-18   Inside the carriage, which is built on several levels, he sits
> in velveteen darkness, with nothing to smoke, feeling metal nearer and
> farther rub and connect, steam escaping in puffs, a vibration in the
> carriage’s frame, a poising, an uneasiness, all the others pressed in
> around, feeble ones, second sheep, all out of luck and time: drunks, old
> veterans still in shock from ordnance 20 years obsolete, hustlers in city
> clothes, derelicts, exhausted women with more children than it seems could
> belong to anyone, stacked about among the rest of the things to be carried
> out to salvation.
>
> In what sense is the word "hustler" used here?
>
> The published translation interprets it as "prostitute", but I'm not sure
> that's correct.
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