1760.—"We now take into consideration the relief of the menial servants of this Settlement, respecting the exorbitant price of labor exacted from them by tailors, washermen, and barbers, which appear in near a quadruple (pro)portion compared with the prices paid in 1755. Agreed, that after the 1st of April they be regulated as follows:
"No tailor to demand for making:
1 [Jamma], more than 3 annas.
* * * * *
1 pair of drawers, 7 pun of cowries.
No washerman:
1 corge of pieces, 7 pun of cowries.
No barber for shaving a single person, more than 7 gundas" (see [COWRY]).—Ft. William Consns., March 27, in Long, 209.
PUNCH, s. This beverage, according to the received etymology, was named from the Pers. panj, or Hind. and Mahr. pānch, both meaning 'five'; because composed of five ingredients, viz. arrack, sugar, lime-juice, spice, and water. Fryer may be considered to give something like historical evidence of its origin; but there is also something of Indian idiom in the suggestion. Thus a famous horse-medicine in Upper India is known as battīsī, because it is supposed to contain 32 ('battīs') ingredients. Schiller, in his Punschlied, sacrificing truth to trope, omits the spice and makes the ingredients only 4: "Vier Elemente Innig gesellt, Bilden das Leben, Bauen die Welt."
The Greeks also had a "Punch," πενταπλόα, as is shown in the quotation from Athenaeus. Their mixture does not sound inviting. Littré gives the etymology correctly from the Pers. panj, but the 5 elements à la française, as tea, sugar, spirit, cinnamon, and lemon-peel,—no water therefore!