"kibosh" and politics

[Stephen Goranson]

In the early 1830s London debate was lively about flogging, and election reform (mentioned in the broadside song that used kibosh), tariffs, and colonial policy. Several of the earliest (pre-Dickens) uses of "kibosh" appear in contexts of political controversy, especially against the Whigs. Why whipping Whigs?
Perhaps worth mentioning: the Whigs were criticized by radicals for failing to abolish flogging in the military. Here's an 1832 cartoon against the Whig Secretary for War, John Hobhouse, who had called for the abolition of flogging before joining the government, but then suggested a limit of 300.
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064172909;view=1up;seq=218
A 7 Dec, 1834 article (The Age, London) that uses kibosh also complained that the Whigs failed to abolish flogging.
When Wellington returned to government, he was said (in several 1834 newspapers) to have "put the kibosh" on the Whigs, flooring them.
The Age [London] 18 Jan 1835:
"The late First Lord of the Admiralty [James Graham, who served from 1830 to 1834, when he resigned] puts what Bill Ingilby calls the "kibosh" upon the Whig lies...."
William (Amcotts) Ingilby was a radical MP (I haven't found such a quote from him yet). Association of flogging by kurbash and by kibosh (among other spellings) may become clearer.

Stephen Goranson
http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/

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