_"Hauling over the Coals"_ (Vol. viii., p. 125.).--This saying I conceive
to have arisen from the custom prevalent in olden times, when every Baron
was supreme in his own castle, of extracting money from the unfortunate
Jews who happened to fall into his power, by means of torture. The most
usual _modus operandi_ seems to have been roasting the victims over a slow
fire. Every one remembers the treatment of Isaac of York by Front-de-Boeuf,
so vividly described in Sir Walter Scott's _Ivanhoe_. Although the practice
has long been numbered amongst the things that were, the fact of its having
once obtained is handed down to posterity in this saying, as when any one
is taken to task for his shortcomings he is _hauled over the coals_.