1755.—In the Calcutta Mayor's expenses we find:
"Tom Tom, R. 1 1 0."—In Long, 56.
1764.—"You will give strict orders to the Zemindars to furnish Oil and Musshauls, and Tom Toms and Pikemen, &c., according to custom."—Ibid. 391.
1770.—"... An instrument of brass which the Europeans lately borrowed from the Turks to add to their military music, and which is called a tam" (!).—Abbé Raynal, tr. 1777, i. 30.
1789.—"An harsh kind of music from a tom-tom or drum, accompanied by a loud rustic pipe, sounds from different parties throughout the throng...."—Munro, Narrative, 73.
1804.—"I request that they may be hanged; and let the cause of their punishment be published in the bazar by beat of tom-tom."—Wellington, iii. 186.
1824.—"The Mahrattas in my vicinity kept up such a confounded noise with the tamtams, cymbals, and pipes, that to sleep was impossible."—Seely, Wonders of Ellora, ch. iv.
1836.—For the use of the word by Dickens, see under [GUM-GUM].
1862.—"The first musical instruments were without doubt percussive sticks, calabashes, tomtoms."—Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 356.
1881.—"The tom-tom is ubiquitous. It knows no rest. It is content with depriving man of his. It selects by preference the hours of the night as the time for its malign influence to assert its most potent sway. It reverberates its dull unmeaning monotones through the fitful dreams which sheer exhaustion brings. It inspires delusive hopes by a brief lull only to break forth with refreshed vigour into wilder ecstacies of maniacal fury—accompanied with nasal incantations and protracted howls...."—Overland Times of India, April 14.