Chapter LAC to LACK of L by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

silver.”—Shihabuddin Dimishki, in Notes and Exts., xiii. 192.

In these examples from Pinto the word is used apart from money, in the Malay form, but not in the Malay sense of 10,000:

c. 1540.—“The old man desiring to satisfie Antonio de Faria’s demand, Sir, said he … the chronicles of those times affirm, how in only four yeares and an half sixteen Lacazaas (lacasá) of men were slain, every Lacazaa containing an hundred thousand.”—Pinto (orig. cap. xlv.) in Cogan, p. 53.

c. 1546.—“… he ruined in 4 months space all the enemies countries, with such a destruction of people as, if credit may be given to our histories … there died fifty Laquesaas of persons.”—Ibid. p. 224.

1615.—“And the whole present was worth ten of their Leakes, as they call them; a Leake being 10,000 pounds sterling; the whole 100,000 pounds sterling.”—Coryat’s Letters from India (Crudities, iii. f. 25v).

1616.—“He received twenty lecks of roupies towards his charge (two hundred thousand pounds sterling).”—Sir T. Roe, reprint, p. 35; [Hak. Soc. i. 201, and see i. 95, 183, 238].

1651.—“Yeder Lac is hondert duysend.”—Rogerius, 77.

c. 1665.—“Il faut cent mille roupies pour faire un lek, cent mille leks pour faire un courou, cent mille courous pour faire un padan, et cent mille padan pour faire un nil.”—Thevenot, v. 54.

1673.—“In these great Solemnities, it is usual for them to set it around with Lamps to the number of two or three Leaques, which is so many hundred thousand in our account.”—Fryer, [p. 104, reading Lecques].

1684.—“They have by information of the servants dug in severall places of the house, where they have found great summes of money. Under his bed were found Lacks 4 ½. In the House of Office two Lacks. They in all found Ten Lacks already, and make no doubt but to find more.”—Hedges, Diary, Jan. 2; [Hak. Soc. i. 145].

1692.—“… a lack of Pagodas. …”—In Wheeler, i. 262.

1747.—“The Nabob and other Principal Persons of this Country are of such an extreme lacrative (sic) Disposition, and … are so exceedingly avaritious, occasioned by the large Proffers they have received from the French, that nothing less than Lacks will go near to satisfie them.”—Letter from Ft. St. David to the Court, May 2 (MS. Records in India Office).

1778.—“Sir Matthew Mite will make up the money already advanced in another name, by way of future mortgage upon his estate, for the entire purchase, 5 lacks of roupees.”—Foote, The Nabob, Act I. sc. i.

1785.—“Your servants have no Trade in this country; neither do you pay them high wages, yet in a few years they return to England with many lacs of pagodas.”—Nabob of Arcot, in Burke’s Speech on his Debts, Works, iv. 18.

1833.—“Tout le reste (et dans le reste il y a des intendants riches de plus de vingt laks) s’assied par terre.”—Jacquemont, Correspond. ii. 120.

1879.—“In modern times the only numbers in practical use above ‘thousands’ are laksa (‘lac’ or ‘lakh’) and koti (‘crore’); and an Indian sum is wont to be pointed thus: 123, 45, 67, 890, to signify 123 crores, 45 lakhs, + 67 thousand, eight hundred and ninety.”—Whitney, Sansk. Grammar, 161.

The older writers, it will be observed (c. 1600-1620), put the lakh at £10,000; Hamilton (c. 1700) puts it at £12,500; Williamson (c. 1810) at the same; then for many years it stood again as the equivalent of £10,000; now (1880) it is little more than £8000; [now (1901) about £6666].

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