Saucepan

Saucepan (pronounced saws-pan)

(1) A deep cooking vessel fashioned usually from metal, typically with a long protruding handle and often a lid; used for boiling, stewing etc with use not restricted to the preparation of sauces.

(2) In uranography (celestial cartography; the mapping of celestial bodies), a pot-shaped asterism in the constellation Orion, consisting of Orion's Belt, Orion's Sword, and the star Eta Orionis (proper noun, thus initial capital).

(3) As “saucepan fish”, a dated term for the king crab.

(4) In slang, to spread information (rumors or facts).

(5) In military slang, a “name” used as a substitute when the real name is deemed too long or hard to pronounce (“wheelbarrow” a historic alternative).

(6) In on-line gaming slang, to kill an opponent (or random other player) in a manner that reduces them to “a sauce”.

(7) In on-line gaming slang (as “saucepanned”), a player killed in a manner that reduces them to “a sauce”.

(8) To cook ingredients in a saucepan.

(9) To hit (someone) using a saucepan as a weapon.

1680–1690: The construct was sauce + pan.  Dating from 1300–1350, sauce was from the Middle English sauce, from the Middle French sauce, from the Old French sauce, sausse & sause, from the Vulgar Latin salsa (things salted, salt food), noun use (feminine) of the Latin salsus (salted), past participle of sallere (to sprinkle with salt), from sāl (genitive salis), from the primitive Indo-European root sal-(salt).  The spelling sawce is long obsolete.  Pan (in the context of the cooking utensil) was from the pre-900 Middle English pann & panne, from the Old English panne, from the Proto-West Germanic pannā, from the Proto-Germanic pannǭ.  It was cognate with the West Frisian panne, the German Low German Panne, the German Pfanne, the Dutch pan, the Saterland Frisian Ponne, the Danish pande, the Swedish panna, the Icelandic panna and the Old Norse panna but the ultimate origin remains murky.  Etymologists suspect variants such as patna & panna were in use in the Vulgar Latin (from the Late Latin panna) in the sense of “pan”; these from the Classical Latin patena & patina (shallow dish, shallow pan, stewpan), from the Ancient Greek πατάνη (patánē) (dish, flat dish), likely of pre-Greek origin.  Among the profession, the Late Latin panna seems generally accepted as the source but some do note the untypically rare attestation and the limited spread to other Romance languages, suggesting the matter should be thought unresolved.  However, alternative explanations (such as the Proto-Germanic pannǭ and Late Latin panna coming from a non-Indo-European Mediterranean substrate word remain speculative and even a link between the Greek patánē and the primitive Indo-European root pete (to spread) has limited support.  Saucepan is a noun & verb, saucepanful is a nouns, saucepanned & saucepanning are verbs and saucepanlike is an adjective; the noun plural is saucepans.  The adjectives saucepanish & saucepanesque are non-standard.

Cooks Standard Multi-Ply Clad 8-Inch (200 mm) Stainless Steel Frying Pan.

A pan is a broad, shallow container of metal, usually having sides flaring outward to the top; they’re used in various forms for frying, baking, mixing (this & that), gold prospecting, washing etc.  So often is the shape seen in many fields that the word has come to be used of any “hollowed-out” thing shaped (even vaguely) like a pan used in cooking.  In engineering, pan-shaped parts are common ranging from the heads of tiny screws to huge “dishes” used in cosmic observation and components in power-generation.  In idiomatic use there was the “flash in the pan” (a transient occurrence with no long-term impact; an early-career success not followed subsequent accomplishments), based on the flash that happened when a musket or flintlock pistol was fired (the gunpowder held in a “pan”).  To say “out of the frying pan and into the fire” suggests going from a bad situation to something worse).  In figurative use, to “pan out” means “to proceed according to plan; to result or end up with an acceptable outcome or in an acceptable form”; it evolved from the nineteenth century Californian gold rush where “pan out” described the process of separating and recovering the precious metal by swirling dirt or crushed rock in a pan of water.  “Pan handle” (literally “the handle of a pan”) is used in geography & cartography to describe a part of land surface that appears to “stick out or project” when viewed on a map (the US state of Florida a classic panhandle).  In military aviation, the lever used to activate an ejector seat was dubbed “pan handle”.  There are specialized variants including the “milk saucepan” (the internal surface now often coated with Teflon) that features a wide lip with a “built-in” indentation for pouring; as the name suggests, typically it’s used to heat milk for drinks.  The now rare sense of pan in the sense of “face” is an Americanism from the 1920s and the idea endures in the slang “pieface” (a “round-faced” person).

Lindsay Lohan cooking pasta with two saucepans (one for pasta; one for sauce), London. 2014.

Paradoxically, most saucepans doubtlessly are used for purposes other than preparing sauces so it should be little surprise there’s no standardization in the terminology and whether a “saucepan” is from time-to-time deemed a “pot”, “saucepan” or some flavour of “pan” is determined wholly by an individual’s culinary lexicon and even within regions that can vary; what’s one thing in one place might be something else in another.  So, there are conventions rather than rules but, as a general principle, pots and pans are distinguished by their depth and use, in which case (1) a saucepan (with its elongated sides) is pot despite its name, (2) pots and pans are distinguished by type and/or number of handles, in which case a saucepan can be a pan and (3) both vessel depth and handles are distinguishing features, in which case saucepans form a separate third class that is sibling to pots and pans.  All that is really not a great deal of help and the best guide is how a manufacturer or retailer describes the thing although a purchaser is free to call their utensil whatever they wish.  What the internet has done is make this use diffuse so whereas it was once possible to guess on which side of the Atlantic the terms were being used, this is no longer the case with the regionalisms now blurred.  Working chefs, better acquainted than most with cooking utensils, seem not too concerned, the language heard in production kitchens tending to be clipped to “pots” and “pans”, visual identification sufficient to determine choice.

Influencer site PureWow Picks noted one of the items Lindsay Lohan thought essential items in the inventory of the modern young woman was a “better non-stick pan”.  In what was described as an “exclusive interview”, Ms Lohan revealed a half-dozen items “she can’t live without” and although it was disclosed “PureWow may earn compensation through affiliate links within the story”, the list was nevertheless an insight into some of the more obscure things that matter to at least a subset of the population:

(1) Nanit Pro Camera & Flex Stand: A handy device with which a mother can monitor her child in another room with two-way audio communication also supported.

(2) Alaïa Criss Cross patent leather ballet flats: Men tend to prefer the female foot in a classic stiletto pump but women seem inclined to allow comfort to matter, ballet flats often the shoe of choice.

(3) Hexclad six-piece Hybrid Fry Pan Set with Lids:  Hexclad’s product is “Teflon free”, “hybrid” a reference to a patented system of “hexagonal steel peaks” (a laser-edged network of ridges said to “boost searing power”), the “non-stick” valleys coated with the company’s proprietary TerraBond™ ceramic non-stick (free from PTFE and forever chemicals).  Concerns about the shedding of PTFE microparticles into food were raised when Teflon was produced using PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid). The story Teflon (PTFE, polytetrafluoroethylene, a synthetic fluoropolymer composed of carbon and fluorine) was developed in the 1960s for the US space program is an urban myth; it actually emerged from DuPont's labs, its low friction properties making the stuff and an ideal coating to create “non-stick” cookware; in that application it’s been a minor but significant contribution to civilized life.

(4) Ōura Ring: Ōura say their ring captures the body's “signals”, converting 40 live activities into biometric data, displayed on a phone app as measures of stress, signs of strain, effective cardiovascular age and such.  Ms Lohan says she uses it daily, checking every morning to track her sleep patterns.

(5) Levi’s 90s Jeans and Frankie Scoop neck white cotton Tee-shirt: For decades, the most enduring “go to uniform” of the Western woman, blue denim jeans and a white cotton scoop-neck Tee-shirt can work as a stand-alone ensemble or a base to accessorize (boots, hats, scarves, blazers etc).  When in doubt, stick to the classics.

(6) Insight Timer App (Meditate, Sleep):  Claimed to be the world’s most popular “wellness app”, Ms Lohan says it and WhatsApp are the phone apps she uses most, the Insight Timer useful for “meditation” or “breath work”.

Before being saucepanned: Callum Forbes (left) and David Cao (right) enjoying an “Instagram sunset moment”, cruising on Sydney Harbour.

The verb “saucepanned” (to cook ingredients in a saucepan) is not recent but few outside of cooking schools will have heard it used and it doesn’t appear with any frequency in cookbooks.  There is however also the sense “to hit (someone) using a saucepan as a weapon” and while that does feed into the reality television stereotype of the “psychotic chef”, most probably assumed it was something seen perhaps in on-line gaming rather than IRL (in real life).  However, in August 2026 came news French police had arrested Australian David Cao (b 1989), then an employee of ING Bank alleging he had attacked his (now former) partner (Callum Forbes (b 1990)) using a saucepan.  At the time of “assault by saucepanning”, Mr Cao had been employed by ING Bank (Australia) (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dutch ING Group) as “head of retail value creation” (it’s not clear what that means), having previously worked at Westpac (a portmanteau word, the construct being Wes(tern) + pac(ific)); originally the Bank of New South Wales (1817), in 1982 it was re-branded as Westpac Banking Corporation, a year after acquiring the CBA (Commercial Bank of Australia)) as head of DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion (everyone knows what that means)).  An ING spokesperson was quoted as saying Mr Cao was no longer employed by the bank but the institution was “aware of allegations involving a former employee”.

Château de Perreux.

The attack allegedly transpired in the Château de Perreux (a “boutique” hotel, close to the historic town of Amboise in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France in the heart of the Loire Valley).  The couple had been spending a night at the hotel, en route to Amsterdam where they were to attend the WorldPride event; Mr Cao had since January 2026 been on the board of LGBTQ+ organisation Rainbow Giving Australia Foundation but, after details emerged of the “saucepan incident”, his profile was removed from the organisation’s website.  The details remain sketchy and it’s not clear whether the saucepan was a “weapon of choice” in a premeditated attack or just whatever fell conveniently to hand at the “spur of the moment” and could just as easily have been whatever else lay close (hair dryer, make-up case etc).  It certainly proved effective, wielded by Mr Cao with such force the handle snapped.  Mr Forbes afterwards locked himself in the bathroom, telling the online site Gay Sydney Daily: “I remember thinking very clearly that I might die there that night in the chateau.  I had been bleeding heavily and too terrified to open the door for what felt like 30-plus minutes waiting for hotel staff to come in.”  As well as the attack with the saucepan (depending on mode of use, effectively both “blunt instrument” and “edged weapon”), Mr Cao is alleged to have poured boiling water over his victim’s body; although the sequence of events wasn’t disclosed, presumably the water was boiled in saucepan and subsequently re-purposed.

After being saucepanned: Image distributed by Callum Forbes while undergoing treatment in hospital.

By the time staff arrived in the room, Mr Cao had fled in a rental car, detained by French police some 36 hours later, near the Belgian border, allegedly trying to board a train out of France.  According to a statement issued by French police: “One of the partners had just been struck several times on the head during a domestic dispute in which separation was being discussed.  The victim began shouting ‘help’ while a saucepan with a sharp edge was used as a weapon.   The brutality of the blows was such that the handle of the pan broke under the impact.”  Mr Cao was reported as having been charged with “attempted murder, acts of torture and barbarity, kidnapping, and theft” with a trial date not yet set.  The Australian DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade) confirmed it was providing consular assistance to the victim and was attempting to make contact with Mr Cao (by then in custody) but was unable to make further comment, citing privacy obligations.  Asked his view on Mr Cao, one ING staff member (who requested anonymity), the former DEI operative had “…an inflated opinion of himself”.  Mr Forbes shared post-attack photographs; he suffered second degree burns to his face requiring stitches, along with burns to his torso and arms and a burst eardrum.  He told a Sydney newspaper the attack happened shortly after the pair had discussed separating and clearly it was unexpected, Mr Forbes asleep at the time after the couple “had enjoyed a pleasant dinner and spa”.  The newspaper La Nouvelle Republique, (citing a source “close to the investigation”), reported Mr Cao admitted to the attack but not to intending to kill his partner.

Counting Dead Women Australia.

Domestic violence is a scourge in Australia with working-class women disproportionately the victims.  Quite the extent of the problem isn’t known because published statistics reflect only reported incidents but what is known is, on average, the long-term trend is every 9 to 11 days, a woman is killed by her current or former partner.  So consistent and troubling were the numbers that a Facebook page was created: Counting-Dead-Women-Australia providing annual summaries of the grim toll (41 for calendar year 2026 by the end of October).  Despite the numbers, the fact that most of the victims are working-class women not organized into or represented by pressure groups able to pose a political threat may not be unrelated to politicians handling the matter as just another tiresome question to be fobbed off with sympathetic words and vague assurances.  That stands in stark contrast to the political class’s shocked reaction and practical response when, in October 2026, a female politician was the victim of an attack (rammed by a motor vehicle, the victim losing both legs).  Suddenly, violence became a first-order (ie “money no object”) issue and it was clear resources would be made available to ensure politicians were afforded even more protection; women generally would be left to arrange their own defences.

Women being murdered by men either their current or former partner represent overwhelmingly the bulk of those killed but, as the “saucepan incident” illustrated, the LGBTQQIAAOP community is not immune from domestic violence but the prevalence is uncertain and early in 2026, the LGBTQIA+ DVAF (Domestic Violence Awareness Foundation) highlighted concerns that campaigns addressing domestic and family violence often “overlook” LGBTQIA+ people. According to the Private Lives 3 Report (2020), more than 60% of LGBTQIA+ people reported experiencing domestic or family violence.  That does sound high but (1) the term “violence” is now wider and encompasses concepts such as “psychological violence” and (2) statistics will be slanted by those with an experience of “violence” being more inclined to report so the numbers must be read with caution.  Still, there’s little doubt the LGBTQQIAAOP community does have a problem with domestic violence and while the nature and extent (the “tops slapping their bottoms” trope a homophobic slur) may be different from that in “straight society”, clearly it’s not insignificant.  Since 2020, the foundation has raised awareness of the issue through an annual awareness day held each May, an approach prompted by the historic lack of research into domestic violence within same-sex relationships.  One report in the academic journal Trauma, Violence and Abuse reviewed 108 studies (published between 1990 and September 2021), finding LGBTQIA+ people were found to experience high rates of sexual violence, most commonly perpetrated (predictably) by men; the highest rates were reported among transgenders, the gender-diverse and bisexual women.  Again, the statistics cannot be relied on as indicative of the wider problem, the research conducted mostly among US university students (a cohort for a variety of reasons for decades over-represented in academic research) and the only valid conclusion must be the standard: “more research required”.

Although a simple coincidence, courtroom sketch artist Rocco Fazzari's (b 1959) drawing of Beau Lamarre-Condon (b 1996, left) looks damnably like Spanish Franciscan friar Francisco Garcés (1738–1781, right) who served as a missionary in the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain (1521-1821, an often shifting claim of territories centred around Mexico and extending to southern & western North America, the Caribbean, northern parts of South America and a number of Pacific archipelagos (including briefly even the island of Formosa (now the renegade province of Taiwan))) before being “martyred” when killed in what is now Yuma, Arizona, by members of a indigenous nation displeased by the conduct of Spanish colonizers.

In Australia, a dramatic instance of domestic violence in the LGBTQQIAAOP community captured attention when, in February 2024, NSW Police Constable Beau Lamarre-Condon (b 1996) was accused of having murdered TV presenter Jesse Baird (1997–2024) and flight attendant Luke Davies, (1994-2024), shooting both with his police-issue Glock semi-automatic pistol in Mr Baird’s home in the inner-Sydney suburb of Paddington.  According to press reports, Mr Lamarre-Condon had become “obsessed” with Mr Baird which whom he'd previously ("off and on") enjoyed some sort of relationship and was not best pleased at him having “moved on” to another boyfriend (Mr Davies).  The allegation is Mr Lamarre-Condon donned the disguise of an Uber Eats delivery driver and went to Mr Baird’s house where he shot dead both victims, later disposing of their bodies in bushland; facing two charges of murder and one of aggravated break and enter, Mr Lamarre-Condon pleaded not guilty, citing self defence as a justification for his actions causing two deaths.  In such matters, a claim of "self defence" can wholly be exculpatory but success depends on the facts presented in court and, on the basis of what’s been published (suspect alleged while armed with handgun to have gone uninvited to the home of unarmed victims), the circumstances during the critical moments would have to be most untypical for the legal tactic to work.

Beau Lamarre-Condon with “default” influencer collateral (private jet (Hawker 1000), champagne flute and Hermès Birkin Bag in black leather with silver-tone Palladium hardware) prominently displayed.

An alternative defence of some flavor of insanity has apparently not been filed but when giving evidence, Mr Lamarre-Condon did discuss certain aspects of events he considered contributed to his mental state including (1) a former colleague who took his own life, (2) the “confronting” situations he faced during his service as a police officer (including “dealing with” multiple corpses) and (3) a complaint he’d made in 2018 about a fellow officer’s alleged homophobic remarks.  That was in accord with an earlier interview with detectives during which he'd mentioned certain work-related matters had “messed me up” and made repeated references to “not remembering” and having an “outer [sic] body experience” (the report of interview noted him stating: “I’m not that person”).  “I don’t want you judge me, I’m not a bad person”, he told one investigator, adding he’d been “upset” about NSW police being excluded from that year’s Sydney Mardi Gras gay-pride parade and hoped “one day be able to talk to Jesse and Luke’s families”.  The office conducting the interview acknowledged that while Mr Lamarre-Condon was at times “emotional”, he seemed cognisant of what was happening and did not display “any obvious signs of psychosis”.

Jessie Baird (left) and Luke Davies (right).

In court, the prosecution introduced evidence suggesting some degree of premeditation, including the history on Mr Lamarre-Condon’s phone revealing searches for “a silencer” (a device attached to the muzzle of a firearm to muffle the sound of a shot) and a video tutorial titled “how to mix concrete”, the latter said to suggest the accused intended to dispose of the bodies by encasing them in “quick-set concrete” and “sinking them” (presumably at sea, according to urban legend the New York mafia’s term for the method was “cement overshoes”).  The essence of the Crown’s case is Mr Baird was shot twice while standing in the kitchen (the second shot described as “execution style”) and subsequently Mr Davies was shot through a bedroom door as he tried to call police for assistance.  Mr Lamarre-Condon claims his gun “went off” during two separate struggles, both victims fatally wounded.  His subsequent actions (“cleaning up” the scene and disposing of the bodies) were described by prosecutors as “calculated” to “cover up his involvement” in the double-murders, but counsel for Mr Lamarre-Condon’s told the jury they were the actions of a man who “panicked considerably”.

Unlike the “code states” (Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory) in which the criminal law is codified, NSW technically is a “common law state” although a large number of crimes and procedures have been collected into statutory acts (notably the Crimes Act (1900)) meaning the underlying system administering criminal law remains rooted in precedent (historical, judge-made decisions).  However, between the two approaches, the concept of “self defence” varies little and Mr Lamarre-Condon’s evidence was a case study in how an accused should structure their answers and assertions.  The single most vital aspect in mounting the defence in the case of murder is the defendant must genuinely and reasonably believe their own life was at immediate risk at the hands of the victim, the latter needing to display both an intent to kill and the means to achieve that.  Mr Lamarre-Condon claimed Mr Baird had a knife and he had aimed his shot “at the shoulder” in an attempt to effect a disarming, tell the jury he made the “right call” and had gone into “police mode”, explaining he had said: “Drop the knife or I’ll shoot you”, adding “I knew if I didn’t do that I was 110% going … to be dead … and Jesse Baird would be sitting in my position today.”  He further claimed that in the struggle that ensued after the first shot, he had “accidentally discharged” the firearm.  “I stand by the first shot. I've had lots and lots of time to think about this.  The first shot was intentional the second wasn't.”

Beau Lamarre-Condon in “police mode”.

If the jury accepts that explanation, Mr Lamarre-Condon was correct in saying “It was my fault … I’ve said from the start I am guilty of manslaughter and I am responsible for his death but it wasn’t intentional.”  All that is boilerplate stuff from legal practice textbooks but his explanation of why he was disguised as an Uber Eats delivery driver (with full-face helmet and hi-viz vest) was more imaginative.  He claims it was at a nearby café he “found a parked motorbike with an Uber Eats helmet and jacket” and it was these items he donned for the fateful visit, taking with him “an Uber Eats paper bag” further to enhance the apparent authenticity.  At that point, he became emotional and his voice faltered, saying it was “…this moment here that caused…”  He added: “I wish that I didn’t do this, but I had the thought process of I guess … I could knock on Jesse’s door and if he answered the door he wouldn’t be able to see my face.   I couldn’t be falsely accused of harassment.”  Now in its seventh week, the trial in the NSW Supreme Court before Justice Natalie Adams (b 1965) continues.

Chamber

Chamber (pronounced cheym-ber)

(1) A room, usually private, in a house or apartment, especially a bedroom (now archaic or poetic).

(2) A reception room or audience room in an official residence, palace, etc.

(3) The meeting hall of a legislative or other assembly.

(4) In law, a place where a judge hears matters not requiring action in open court.

(5) In England, the quarters or rooms that lawyers use to consult with their clients, especially in the Inns of Court.

(6) A legislative, judicial, or other like body.

(7) An organization of individuals or companies for a specified purpose.

(8) The place where the moneys due a government are received and kept; a treasury or chamberlain's office (obsolete).

(9) As chamberlet, a small chamber.

(10) Of or relating to, or performing chamber music.

(11) To put or enclose in, or as in, a chamber.

(12) To provide with a chamber.

(13) The space between two gates of the locks of a canal, dry dock, etc

(14) An enclosure for a cartridge in the cylinder of a revolver or for a shell in the breech of a cannon.

(15) An enclosed space, compartment or cavity; the smallest chamber in a cave.

1175-1225: From the Middle English chamber (a room in a (usually private) house) from the eleventh century Old French chambre (room, chamber, apartment), derived from the Late Latin camera (a chamber, room), variant of camara (vaulted room) from the Ancient Greek kamára.  In an interesting linguistic twist, the Old French and Middle English words were also used alone and in combinations to form words for "latrine, privy" from the idea of the "bedroom utensil for containing urine".  The word in the fourteenth century was adopted for use in to anatomy in the sense of "an enclosed space in a body" and this was extended to machinery after 1769, the use in gunnery or ballistics meaning  "part of the bore in which the charge is placed" dating from the 1620s.  The familiar use to refer to the rooms where legislative bodies assemble (ie upper & lower chambers) has been in use since circa 1400.  Chamber music dates from 1789; the distinction being it described a type of music meant to be performed in private rooms instead of public halls.  Chamber-lye, disturbingly to modern ears, meant "urine used as a detergent" and dates from the 1570s and the obviously related chamber-pot (also chamberpot) (vessel for urine used in bedrooms) came into use a decade earlier.  A chambermaid was (1) a female servant who dresses a lady and waits on her in her bedchamber and (2) a woman who makes beds and cleans rooms in a private house, palace or inn, a form which emerged in the 1580s and obviously derived from bedchamber (also bed-chamber) (a room for sleep or repose) which had been in use since the mid-fourteenth century.  Bedchamber is now archaic and used only in relation to royalty (an then mostly in historic reference), expensive hotels and hopeful real-estate salespeople.  The verb chamber was in the late fourteenth century derived from the noun and was used in the sense of (1) to restrain, shut up as in a chamber and (2) to furnish with a chamber" (implied in chambered); the related form was chambering.  The adjective chambered (divided into chambers) was from the same era and was the past-participle adjective the verb.  The famous reference to nautilus shells dates from 1819.  Chamber & chambering are nouns & verbs, chamberful & chamberer are nouns, chambered is a verb & adjective, chamberless & chamberlike are adjectives; the noun plural is chambers.

The cult of the combustion chamber.

In an ICE (internal combustion engine), the combustion chamber is the (temporarily) sealed space in which a quantity of fuel and air is compressed and then ignited (ie the mix is combusted), the energy released moving a piston or rotor, that energy subsequently transferred by a series of mechanical connections so the movement (transferred energy) can be applied to some purpose.  All else being equal, the larger the chamber and the more of them, the more energy can be produced, expressed usually as power or torque.  In an ICE, these ignitions happen thousands of times a second so the transfer of energy from the fuel to a mechanical action can be considerable.  Combustion chamber design has for well over a century occupied the time of engineers and a number of “standard types” emerged including the “wedge”, “hemi” “poly” and “swirl”.  For those designing a device for a single purpose the task can be a relatively simple quest for optimal efficiency (for short-duration purposes such as drag or sprint racing when all that matters is power & torque) whereas if there are a number of parameters it’s a matter of balancing out competing specific efficiencies (in endurance racing, economy matters as well as power & torque).  In mass production units for general sale, as well as striking a balance between output and economy, engineers also have to factor in the cost & ease of manufacture as well as (for the last 60-odd years) the toxicity of emissions.

Smith & Wesson Model 648 .22 WMR Revolver.  In a revolver, the bullets are housed in chambers (typically between 5 & 10) in the revolving cylinder.

Popular in the “female market” (in the US, a sector for some years exhibiting consistent growth) and something of a “sweet spot” for small-game-hunting and plinking (recreational target shooting), the .22 Magnum cartridge is suitable for both handguns and long-arms; inherently an accurate cartridge, the ballistics out of a 6-inch (150 mm) barrel handgun are at least equal to those of a 22 LR out of a 24-inch (610 mm) barrel rifle.  Smith & Wesson’s 648 was produced in runs between 1989-1996 and 2003-2005, the re-introduction in 2020 much welcomed.  The most recent edition uses a stainless steel version of S&W’s 6-inch K-Frame barrel with an 8-chamber cylinder.

The Court of Star Chamber

The former Court of Star Chamber (1836), engraving by unknown artist, published in Edward Walford’s (1823-1897) Old & New London (Volume 3, 1881), reproducing a visual record of the historic chamber shortly before it was demolished.

Named for the star pattern on the ceiling of the room in Westminster Palace where sittings were convened, the Court of Star Chamber (known almost always as the Star Chamber), was an English law court that operated in parallel with the common-law courts although its authority was drawn directly from the king's sovereign power and privileges; it was not bound by the common law or legal precedent.  Created originally to ensure the enforcement of laws against the socially and politically well-connected (those "ordinary" courts often for whatever reason hesitant to convict "the rich"), the Star Chamber evolved from the medieval King's Council.  There had been a tradition of the king presiding over a court composed of his Privy Counsellors and in 1487, under the supervision of Henry VII (1457–1509; King of England 1485-1509 and the first Tudor king), the Court of Star Chamber was established as a judicial body separate from the council (analogous with the way by the nineteenth century the courts of final appeal referred to as (1) the House of Lords and (2) the Privy Council had become specialized bodies with a small, judicially qualified membership while retaining the existing names).  The original rationale was for the Star Chamber to (1) oversee the lower courts, (2) act as a court of appeal and (3) hear petitions seeking redress addressed to the king.  Initially, the court heard cases only on appeal, but Henry VIII's (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1473–1530; Lord High Chancellor of England 1515-1529) encouraged suitors directly to lodge writs of appeal and not await verdicts from the common-law courts (a concept that might have appeal for some modern-day litigants and lawyers).  Although most of the cases heard involved property rights, trade, government administration and public corruption, the Tudors especially were concerned with public disorder and Cardinal Wolsey referred matters involving forgery, fraud, perjury, riot, slander, and anything else he considered a breach of the peace. Following the Reformation, the Star Chamber was used (and much misused) to punish religious dissenters.

Procedurally the Star Chamber would begin a case with a petition or with information brought to the attention of the judges and depositions would be taken to discover the facts.  Accused parties could be put on oath to respond to the charges and answer detailed questions. No juries were used; members of the court decided whether to hear cases, passed verdicts and assigned punishments.  Structurally, the court was thus a hybrid with influences from the common law, Roman civil law, developments in Chancery (equity) law and the Court of Exchequer.  Interestingly, the court did not have capital jurisdiction so instead declared its choice of punishment was wholly arbitrary and not at all governed by precedent, guidelines or laws, judges able to choose (indeed even invent) the punishment(s) they felt most appropriate to the crime or criminal and on the bench there were some imaginative folk.  The sentences handed down included fines, time in the pillory (stocks), whipping, branding, mutilation or imprisonment for any length of time.  In Australia, there are critics of the NSW (New South Wales) ICAC (Independent Commission against corruption) who compare its operations with the Star Chamber; in this they’re only partially correct in that there are some procedural similarities but the comparison is not valid regarding punishments.

Tucked up: Lindsay Lohan in her bedchamber under tufted bedhead.

The Star Chamber offered an expeditious resolution to legal conflicts. It was popular with the Tudors because quickly it could enforce the law (or the will of the king when the letter of the law proved tiresome) when other courts were slow or tainted by corruption.  In royal circles it was valued because it could be relied upon to deliver "satisfactory remedies" in cases  where the common law restricted punishments able to be inflicted or failed to address specific infractions.  These days, some might call it "judicially efficient".  Under the Tudors, Star Chamber hearings were held in public, proceedings and verdicts subject to inspection, that alone inducing most judges to act with reason and try to deliver fair justice; it was in the seventeenth century, the court evolved into something secretive and corrupt, the Stuarts using the court to enforce their royal proclamations (ancestor of the "executive order" now much associated with the White House), holding sessions in secret and allowing no appeals.  Charles I (1600–1649; King of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1625-1649) saw the court as a substitute for Parliament when he tried to govern without calling the legislature into session and resentment grew as the Stuarts used the court to prosecute members of the nobility who otherwise would not be subject to prosecution in common-law courts.  The Long Parliament in 1641 abolished the Star Chamber and, except in historic references, the term "star chamber" is now almost always pejorative and used to describe social and political oppression through the arbitrary use and abuse of the powers wielded (in political science, the doctrine of separation of powers is held to be the most effective means to prevent abuse of power by the state; at its most simple, it means the executive can no longer in individual cases impose the sanctions of criminal law, a function belonging exclusively to the courts.  The verbal shorthand for the concept is "judicial independence".

Not often was the Court of Star Chamber a cause for mirth but William Shakespeare (1564–1616) found a way in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602), Justice Shallow in Act 1, Scene 1 saying: “Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.”  The context was the carefully named Justice Shallow, an arrogant, pompous provincial magistrate from Gloucestershire, was furious because Sir John Falstaff and his followers had insulted and robbed him and his cousin.  That this petty crime was not the sort of thing to come before the Star Chamber was the joke, showing Shallow’s puffed-up sense of self-importance and legal pedantry.  The Court of Star Chamber was a classic example of an institution that “seemed a good idea at the time” that came, through a process of “mission creep” later to be "re-purposed" and misused to the extent it became something worse than the problems it was created to solve.  The early records are sketchy so the origins are obscure but the critical point was that despite the creation of several layers of courts and the evolution of the English common law, no sovereign ever surrendered their “supreme jurisdiction” and by the thirteenth century, when sessions of the King's Council became regular (and functionally distinct from parliament), this residual supreme jurisdiction continued to be exercised by the King in council.  What happened was that as the common law administered by the courts introduced (by the operation of precedent) a certain predictability, the more erratic judgments handed down by the council (a body with unlimited jurisdiction) resulted in an increasing volume of complaints but, such was the state of constitutional development (essentially the balance of power between the king and parliament), successive parliaments had little success in effecting reforms.

Sir Edward Coke (published 1792), line engraving by Thomas Trotter (circa 1750-1803), after a portrait by Cornelius Johnson (Cornelius Janssen van Ceulen, 1593-1661), published by publisher & bookseller Thomas Cadell the Elder (1742-1802), National Portrait Gallery, London.

As late as the nineteenth century, historians were still writing of the Star Chamber (after operating for a half-century odd) “ceasing to exist” towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) with the court’s powers reverting to the Council.  The extant records are contradictory but whatever the terminology used, it would seem a deliberative body at least “Star Chamber-like” sat concurrently with the Council and, by whatever processes, the two bodies were again separate institutions late in the reign of Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603).  The murkiness seems to stem from the Act of 1540 including the phrase “in the Star Chamber or elsewhere” and this may explain why it became difficult to determine a clear distinction between the duties of the Privy Council and those of the Star Chamber; essentially, it wasn’t clear in what capacity members were sitting and there’s little to suggest they made jurisdictional distinctions.

The uncertainty is illustrated in the writings of eminent jurist Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634 Chief Justice of the King's Bench 1613–1616) who observed the Star Chamber “is (or may be) compounded of three several councils: (1) the Lords and others of the Privy Council; (2) the judges of either bench and the barons of the Exchequer; (3) the Lords of Parliament, who are not, however, standing judges of the court.”  Sir Edward usually is regarded as authoritative but William Hudson (circa 1577-1935), an advocate who practiced before the court, in 1621 claimed all peers had the right of sitting in the court and it’s not clear when that right was extinguished but definitely the privilege did not exist late in the seventeenth century.  Hudson’s Treatise of the court of Star Chamber (1621) was a quite strident defence of the Star Chamber, a response to complaints about the body’s haphazard ways with the records of pleadings and judgements.  Critics compared the court’s inconsistent, unstructured approach with the at least semi-codified methods by then adopted by Westminster’s other courts and found a “lack of diligence”, claiming the Star Chamber was no “settled, ordinary court of justice”, nor a “court of ordinary justice ever tied to form” but effectively “a committee for such great causes as it pleased the king”.  Hudson did not deny the administrative neglect but observed it was something new, the court in former times a model of record-keeping.  By the time Parliament abolished the Star Chamber, one of the distinctions MPs drew between it and what they deemed the “ordinary, legitimate courts of common law” was precisely that the former had no proper record whereas the latter did.

The Court of Star Chamber, Westminster (undated), lithograph by unknown artist, The National and Domestic History of England (circa 1890) by William Hickman Smith Aubrey (1858-1916).

That grumble really was a product of how “records” was defined.  The court produced an abundance of material, just not in the predictable, structured form used by other courts, a form that would come to be accepted as the proceedings of a “court of record” (ancestor of the modern law report).  If judged by volume alone, the Star Chamber certainly was productive, its documents including lengthy bills in the form of petitions through to rejoinders, demurrers, interrogatories, and depositions.  In a modern phrase, that was "a lot of data but not much information", lawyers finding it difficult to “mine” all this stuff for findings or facts, let alone incontrovertible determinations.  As an outgrowth of the authority of the sovereign, the jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was as vague as its constitution, Hudson making the point it was “impossible to define” without offending the supporters of “the prerogative” by a limitation of its powers, or the advocates by attributing to it “an excessive latitude”.  Given that, it’s hardly surprising the jurisdiction remained effectively close to unlimited and the vista was extraordinary, encompassing from time-to-time riots, murder, forgery, felony, perjury, fraud, libel and slander, duels and acts tending to treason, as well as of some civil matters, such as disputes about land between great men and corporations, disputes between English and foreign merchants, and testamentary cases.  It can be understood only as analogous to a delegation of the powers of an absolute monarch dispensing justice from his throne and that was of course the body's medieval root.  As Hudson put it: “All offences may be here examined and punished if the King will.”  Not constrained by the limitations and guideposts of the common law, Hudson’s critique was summed-up by a later reviewer as: “Its procedure was not according to the Common Law; it dispensed with the encumbrance of a jury; it could proceed on rumour alone; it could apply torture; it could inflict any penalty but death.”

The paradox of such an institution was that it was thus “admirably calculated to be the support of order against anarchy, or of despotism against individual and national liberty.”  So it proved, operating in the former light under the Stuarts and in the latter under the Tudors, shifting from “a tribunal constantly resorted to as a resource against the ignorance or prejudices of a country jury” where, in such investigations “it showed itself intelligent and impartial.”  Under the Stuarts, the Star Chamber became “the great engine of the royal tyranny” with “hateful and excessive punishments inflicted on those brought it judges”.  Amusingly, despite that perception, even as late as 1629 the Barons of the Exchequer felt moved to observe the Star Chamber was “one of the most high and honourable courts of justice.”  Although in 1641 abolished by an act of parliament, twenty years later the "gap in the judicial market" was considered by a committee of the House of Lords, their lordships reporting “that it was fit for the good of the nation that there be a court of like nature to the Star Chamber.”  The mood had however shifted and the matter wasn’t pursued.