Writing in Language: "Screeve"

As a learner, one of the aspects that I love the most about languages is their incommensurable dimension, the feeling that you have never learnt them all, that there are always new words to discover. I am extremely excited every time I find a word I specially like because of its sound, meaning or just for no other reason that it sounds good to me. It happens with "mesmerizing", "cajole", "enthralling" or "postcrossing" (the latter hasn't been added to the dictionary yet but just give it time).

In order to keep up to date with new terms and additions to the dictionary, or to learn about etymology or less-known words, I follow Merriam-Webster in Twitter. They post new words, quizzes, or language snippets every day. One of their tweets presented an article dealing with 8 words that had to with annoying habits, such as breathing noisily, spraying saliva while you talk or laughing loudly. And it was in this article that I discovered "screeve". I am pasting below the explanation they give for this word.

Definition: to write (as a letter) in order to beg

As our epistolary habits become more and more electronically-based, we now hear complaints along the lines of "no one writes proper letters anymore." Notably, this nostalgia for the days of receiving letters written with a fountain pen on linen paper extends only to certain kinds of correspondence, such as thank-you notes; when someone is screeving a letter to you asking for money it matters little whether the request comes via text or in more corporeal form. 

The report of his mission included that he had passed the portals of the “Three Stoats,” and had “liquored up” with the worthy landlord (who, in the course of friendly converse, hazarded the delicate supposition that Mr. Mallet was a “screever,” i.e., begging-letter writer)…. 

—MacMillan’s Magazine, 1 Nov., 1873