in Commerce, a warm woollen stuff, light and loosely woven, chiefly used in bedding.

Tossing in a BLANKET, a ludicrous kind of punishment, of which mention is made by the ancients under the deno- mination sagatio. Martial describes it graphically enough: Ibis ab excusa, missus ad astra, sago. A later writer re- presents it as one of Otho's imperial delights; but it is to be observed that the emperor's diversion, as described by Suetonius, consisted in his being the agent in, not the subject of, this amusement; for his practice seems to have been to stroll out in dark nights, and where he met with a helpless or drunken man, to give him the discipline of the blanket. Every body recollects Sancho Panza's misfortune in this way, and the sorrowful sport it proved to the worthy squire of the knight of La Mancha.