Chapter SINGAPORE to SIRCAR of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Master’ or head of the domestic government. Thus a servant, if asked ‘Whose are those horses?’ in replying ‘They are the sarkar’s,’ may mean according to circumstances, that they are Government horses, or that they belong to his own master.

b. In Bengal the word is applied to a domestic servant who is a kind of house-steward, and keeps the accounts of household expenditure, and makes miscellaneous purchases for the family; also, in merchants’ offices, to any native accountant or native employed in making purchases, &c.

c. Under the Mahommedan Governments, as in the time of the Mogul Empire, and more recently in the Deccan, the word was applied to certain extensive administrative divisions of territory. In its application in the Deccan it has been in English generally spelt Circar (q.v.).

a.—

[1759.—“… there is no separation between your Honour … and this Sircar. …”—Forrest, Bombay Letters, ii. 129.]

1800.—“Would it not be possible and proper to make people pay the circar according to the exchange fixed at Seringapatam?”—Wellington, i. 60.

[1866.—“… the Sirkar Buhadoor gives me four rupees a month. …”—Confessions of an Orderly, 43.]

b.—

1777.—“There is not in any country in the world, of which I have any knowledge, a more pernicious race of vermin in human shape than are the numerous cast of people known in Bengal by the appellation of Sircars; they are educated and trained to deceive.”—Price’s Tracts, i. 24.

1810.—“The Sircar is a genius whose whole study is to handle money, whether receivable or payable, and who contrives either to confuse accounts, when they are adverse to his view, or to render them most expressively intelligible, when such should suit his purpose.”—Williamson, V.M. i. 200.

1822.—“One morning our Sircar, in answer to my having observed that the articles purchased were highly priced, said, ‘You are my father and my mother, and I am your poor little child. I have only taken 2 annas in the rupee dustoorie’ ” (dustoor).—Wanderings of a Pilgrim, i. 21–22.

1834.—“ ‘And how the deuce,’ asked his companion, ‘do you manage to pay for them?’ ‘Nothing so easy,—I say to my Sirkar: ‘Baboo, go pay for that horse 2000 rupees, and it is done, Sir, as quickly as you could dock him.’ ”—The Baboo and Other Tales, i. 13.

c.—

c. 1590.—“In the fortieth year of his majesty’s reign, his dominions consisted of 105 Sircars, subdivided into 2737 kusbahs” (cusba), “the revenue of which he settled for ten years at 3 Arribs, 62 Crore, 97 Lacks, 55, 246 Dams” (q.v. 3,62,97,55,246 dams = about 9 millions sterling).—Ayeen, E.T. by Gladwin, 1800, ii. 1; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 115.]