Slungshot

A slungshot is a maritime tool consisting of a weight, or "shot", affixed to the end of a long cord often by being wound into the center of a knot called a "monkey's fist".

Robert van Gulik stated in the postscript of his book The Willow Pattern A Judge Dee Mystery, that in 1935 when he was in Peking, he was told how "loaded sleeves" facilitated an unexpected escape for a group of foreign nuns threatened by a mob during an anti-Western uprising in China.

The people standing nearest incorrectly identified the bulky objects in the upraised folds of cloth, interpreting them to be dangerous "loaded sleeves".

[1] Abraham Lincoln's most notable criminal trial occurred in 1858 when he successfully defended "Duff" Armstrong on a charge of killing another with a slung shot.

[2] Carrying a slungshot or having one on one's person is a crime in the states of California,[3] Oklahoma,[4] Massachusetts,[5] Michigan,[6] Nevada,[7] Washington,[8] Minnesota,[9] New Hampshire.,[10] and Vermont (when intending to use as a weapon).