Peckham.
_Cash_ (Vol. viii., pp. 386. 524.).--In _The Adventures of the Gooroo
Paramartan_, a tale in the Tamul language, accompanied by a translation and
a vocabulary, &c., by Benjamin Babington London, 1822, is the following:
"Fanam or casoo is unnecessary, I give it to you gratis." To which the
translator subjoins: "The latter word is usually pronounced _cash_ by
Europeans, but the Tamul orthography is used in the text, that the reader
may not take it for an English word."
"Christmas-boxes are said to be an ancient custom here, and I would
almost fancy that our name of box for this particular kind of present,
the derivation of which is not very easy to trace in the European
languages, is a corruption of buckshish, a gift or gratuity, in
Turkish, Persian, and Hindoostanee. There have been undoubtedly more
words brought into our language from the East than I used to suspect.
_Cash_, which here means small money, is one of these; but of the
process of such transplantation I can form no conjecture."--Heber's
_Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India_. vol. i.
p. 52.
Angelo, in his _Gazophylaceum Linguae Persarum_, gives a Persian word of
the same signification and sound, as Italice _cassa_, Latine _capsa_,
Gallice _caisse_.