E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Pap.
He gives pap with a hatchet. He does or says a kind thing in a very brusque and ungracious manner. The Spartan children were fed by the point of a sword, and the Teuton children with hatchets, or instruments so called—probably of the doll type. “Ursus,” in Victor Hugo’s novel of “L’Homme qui Rit,” gives “pap with a hatchet.”
