Chapter DALOYET to DAMMER of D by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

care not, as the Duke says, one twopenny damn”; and Sir G. Trevelyan notes: “It was the Duke of Wellington who invented this oath, so disproportioned to the greatness of its author.” (Life, ed. 1878, ii. 257.)]

1628.—“The revenue of all the territories under the Emperors of Delhi amounts, according to the Royal registers, to 6 arbs and 30 krors of dáms. One arb is equal to 100 krors (a kror being 10,000,000), and a hundred krors of dams are equal to 2 krors and 50 lacs of rupees.”—Muhammad Sharif Haniji, in Elliot, vii. 138.

c. 1840.—“Charles Greville saw the Duke soon after, and expressing the pleasure he had felt in reading his speech (commending the conduct of Capt. Charles Elliot in China), added that, however, many of the party were angry with it; to which the Duke replied,—‘I know they are, and I don’t care a damn. I have no time to do what is right.’

“A twopenny damn was, I believe, the form usually employed by the Duke, as an expression of value: but on the present occasion he seems to have been less precise.”—Autobiography of Sir Henry Taylor, i. 296. The term referred to seems curiously to preserve an unconscious tradition of the pecuniary, or what the idiotical jargon of our time calls the ‘monetary,’ estimation contained in the expression.

1881.—“A Bavarian printer, jealous of the influence of capital, said that ‘Cladstone baid millions of money to the beeble to fote for him, and Beegonsfeel would not bay them a tam, so they fote for Cladstone.’”—A Socialistic Picnic, in St. James’s Gazette, July 6.

[1900.—“There is not, I dare wager, a single bishop who cares one ‘twopenny-halfpenny dime’ for any of that plenteousness for himself.”—H. Bell, Vicar of Muncaster, in Times, Aug. 31.].

DAMAN, n.p. Daman, one of the old settlements of the Portuguese which they still retain, on the coast of Guzerat, about 100 miles north of Bombay; written by them Damão.

1554.—“…the pilots said: ‘We are here between Diu and Daman; if the ship sinks here, not a soul will escape; we must make sail for the shore.”—Sidi ’Ali, 80.

[1607–8.—“Then that by no means or ships or men can goe saffelie to Suratt, or theare expect any quiett trade for the many dangers likelie to happen vnto them by the Portugals Cheef Comanders of Diu and Demon and places there aboute.…”—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 247.]

1623.—“Il capitano…sperava che potessimo esser vicini alla città di Daman; laqual esta dentro il golfo di Cambaia a man destra.…”—P. della Valle, ii. 499 [Hak. Soc. i. 15].

DAMANI, s. Applied to a kind of squall. (See ELEPHANTA.)

DAMMER, s. This word is applied to various resins in different parts of India, chiefly as substitutes for pitch. The word appears to be Malayo-Javanese damar, used generically for resins, a class of substances the origin of which is probably often uncertain. [Mr. Skeat notes that the Malay damar means rosin and a torch made of rosin, the latter consisting of a regular cylindrical case, made of bamboo or other suitable material, filled to the top with rosin and ignited.] To one of the dammer-producing trees in the Archipelago the name Dammara alba, Rumph. (N. O. Coniferae), has been given, and this furnishes the ‘East India Dammer’ of English varnish-makers. In Burma the dammer used is derived from at least three different genera of the N. O. Dipterocarpeae; in Bengal it is derived from the sal tree (see SAUL- WOOD) (Shorea robusta) and other Shoreae, as well as by importation from transmarine sources. In S. India “white dammer,” “Dammer Pitch,” or Piney resin, is the produce of Vateria indica, and “black dammer” of Canarium strictum; in Cutch the dammer used is stated by Lieut. Leech (Bombay Selections, No. xv. p. 215-216) to be made from chandruz (or chandras=copal) boiled with an equal quantity of oil. This is probably Fryer’s ‘rosin taken out of the sea’ (infra). [On the other hand Mr. Pringle (Diary, &c., Fort St. George, 1st ser. iv. 178) quotes Crawfurd (Malay Archip. i. 455): (Dammer) “exudes through the bark, and is either found adhering to the trunk and branches in large lumps, or in masses on the ground, under the trees. As these often grow near the sea-side or on banks of rivers, the damar is frequently floated away and collected at different places as drift”; and adds: “The dammer used for caulking the masula boats at Madras when Fryer was there, may have been, and probably was, imported from the Archipelago, and the fact that the resin was largely collected as drift may have been mentioned in answer to his enquiries.”] Some of the Malay dammer also seems, from Major M‘Nair’s statement, to be, l ike copal, fossil. [On this Mr. Skeat says: “It is true that it is sometimes dug up out of the ground, possibly because it may form on the roots of certain trees, or because a great mass of it will fall and partially bury itself in the ground by its own weight, but I have never heard of its being found actually fossilised,