Chapter JOGEE to JOMPON of J by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Curse of Kehama, xiii. 16.

c. 1812.—“Scarcely … were we seated when behold, there poured into the space before us, not only all the Yogees, Eakeers, and rogues of that description … but the King of the Beggars himself, wearing his peculiar badge.”—Mrs. Sherwood, (describing a visit to Henry Martyn at Cawnpore), Autobiog., 415.

“Apne ganw ka jogi an ganw ka sidh.” Hind. proverb: “The man who is a jogi in his own village is a deity in another.”—Quoted by Elliot, ii. 207.

JOHN COMPANY, n.p. An old personification of the East India Company, by the natives often taken seriously, and so used, in former days. The term Company is still applied in Sumatra by natives to the existing (Dutch) Government (see H. O. Forbes, Naturalist’s Wanderings, 1885, p. 204). [Dohai Company Bahadur ki is still a common form of native appeal for justice, and Company Bagh is the usual phrase for the public garden of a station. It has been suggested, but apparently without real reason, that the phrase is a corruption of Company Jahan, “which has a fine sounding smack about it, recalling Shah Jehan and Jehangir, and the golden age of the Moguls” (G. A. Sala, quoted in Notes and Queries, 8 ser. ii. 37). And Sir G. Birdwood writes: “The earliest coins minted by the English in India were of copper, stamped with a figure of an irradiated lingam, the phallic ‘Roi Soleil.’ The mintage of this coin is unknown (? Madras), but without doubt it must have served to ingratiate us with the natives of the country, and may have given origin to their personification of the Company under the potent title of Kumpani Jehan, which, in English mouths, became ‘John Company’ ” (Report on Old Records, 222, note).]

[1784.—“Further, I knew that as simple Hottentots and Indians could form no idea of the Dutch Company and its government and constitution, the Dutch in India had given out that this was one mighty ruling prince who was called Jan or John, with the surname Company, which also procured for them more reverence than if they could have actually made the people understand that they were, in fact, ruled by a company of merchants.”—Andreas Spurrmann, Travels to the Cape of Good Hope, the South-Polar Lands, and round the World, p. 347; see 9 ser. Notes and Queries, vii. 34.]

1803.—(The Nawab) “much amused me by the account he gave of the manner in which my arrival was announced to him. … ‘Lord Sahab Ka bhànja, Company ki nawasa teshrìf laià’; literally translated, ‘The Lord’s sister’s son, and the grandson of the Company, has arrived.”—Lord Valentia, i. 137.

1808.—“However the business is pleasant now, consisting principally of orders to countermand military operations, and preparations to save Johnny Company’s cash.”—Lord Minto in India, 184.

1818-19.—“In England the ruling power is possessed by two parties, one the King, who is Lord of the State, and the other the Honourable Company. The former governs his own country; and the latter, though only subjects, exceed the King in power, and are the directors of mercantile affairs.”—Sadasukh, in Elliot, viii. 411.

1826.—“He said that according to some accounts, he had heard the Company was an old Englishwoman … then again he told me that some of the Topee wallas say ‘John Company,’ and he knew that John was a man’s name, for his master was called John Brice, but he could not say to a certainty whether ‘Company’ was a man’s or a woman’s name.”—Pandurang Hari, 60; [ed. 1873, i. 83, in a note to which the phrase is said to be a corruption of Joint Company].

1836.—“The jargon that the English speak to the natives is most absurd. I call it ‘John Company’s English,’ which rather affronts Mrs. Staunton.”—Letters from Madras, 42.

1852.—“John Company, whatever may be his faults, is infinitely better than Downing Street. If India were made over to the Colonial Office, I should not think it worth three years’ purchase.”—Mem. Col. Mountain, 293.

1888.—“It fares with them as with the sceptics once mentioned by a South-Indian villager to a Government official. Some men had been now and then known, he said, to express doubt if there were any such person as John Company; but of such it was observed that something bad soon happened to them.”—Sat. Review, Feb. 14, p. 220.

JOMPON, s. Hind. janpan, japan, [which are not to be found in Platt’s Dict.]. A kind of sedan, or portable chair used chiefly by the ladies at the Hill Sanitaria of Upper India. It is carried by two pairs of men (who are called Jomponnies, i.e. janpani or japani), each pair bearing on their shoulders a short bar from which the shafts of the chair are slung. There is some perplexity as to the origin of the word. For we find in Crawfurd’s Malay Dict. “Jampana (Jav. Jampona), a kind of litter.” Also the Javanese Dict.