CUSTOM, s. Used in Madras as the equivalent of [Dustoor], Dustoory, of which it is a translation. Both words illustrate the origin of Customs in the solemn revenue sense.
1683.—"Threder and Barker positively denied ye overweight, ye Merchants proved it by their books; but ye skeyne out of every draught was confest, and claimed as their due, having been always the custom."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 83.
1768-71.—"Banyans, who ... serve in this capacity without any fixed pay, but they know how much more they may charge upon every rupee, than they have in reality paid, and this is called costumado."—Stavorinus, E.T., i. 522.
CUSTOMER, s. Used in old books of Indian trade for the native official who exacted duties. [The word was in common use in England from 1448 to 1748; see N.E.D.]
[1609.—"His houses ... are seized on by the Customer."—Danvers, Letters, i. 25; and comp. Foster, ibid. ii. 225.
[1615.—"The Customer should come and visitt them."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 44.]
1682.—"The several affronts, insolences, and abuses dayly put upon us by Boolchund, our chief Customer."—Hedges, Diary, [Hak. Soc. i. 33].
CUTCH, s. See [CATECHU].
CUTCH, n.p. Properly Kachchh, a native State in the West of India, immediately adjoining Sind, the Rājput ruler of which is called the Rāo. The name does not occur, as far as we have found, in any of the earlier Portuguese writers, nor in Linschoten, [but the latter mentions the gulf under the name of Jaqueta (Hak. Soc. i. 56 seq.)]. The Skt. word kachchha seems to mean a morass or low, flat land.
c. 1030.—"At this place (Mansura) the river (Indus) divides into two streams, one empties itself into the sea in the neighbourhood of the city of Lúháráni, and the other branches off to the east to the borders of Kach."—Al-Birūnī, in Elliot, i. 49.