Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/13

 io* s. i. JAN. 2, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

for the Prior of Durham (' Durham Account Rolls,' Surt. Soc., 100, p. 534 ; 103, p. 893, where a reference is given to Rogers, iv. 556). Under ' Sanappus ' Halliwell quotes, from a ballad of 1387, " towels of Eylyssham, white as the sea's foam." W. C. B.

"SiT LOOSE TO/' The 'H.E.D.' has appa- rently no quotation for this. The nearest to it is from Churchill, 1763, "Loose to Fame, the muse more simply acts," illustrating a sense marked obsolete. " To sit loose to the world " is, however, still a very common phrase in Methodist class-meetings.

C. C. B.

" YAWS " : ITS ETYMOLOGY. According to Rees's ' Cyclopaedia,' 1819, this skin disease is "so called from the. resemblance of its eruption to a raspberry, the word yaw in some African dialect being the name of that fruit." This etymology has been copied with- out suspicion by the ' Encyclopaedic,' the 'Century,' and other great modern dic- tionaries. Nevertheless it is a blunder. Rees does not explicitly state his authority, but it appears from the context to be Dr. T. Winterbottom, 'Account of the Present State of Medicine among the Xative Africans of Sierra Leone,' 1803, vol. ii. p. 154, where I find the following :

" There is a modification of the venereal disease met with in Scotland which is called tnrceii*, from a word in the Scoto-Saxpn language spoken in the Highlands signifying a wild raspberry, in Gaelic or Erse it is called xonmiu, in some parts it is also called the yaws."

Rees evidently misread Winterbottom, who nowhere says that African yaio means rasp- berry, but, on the contrary, ascribes that sense to Gaelic soucrut^iu more correct orthography subkchraobh or sughchraobh. What, then, is the true origin of i/aws? The disease is called in British Guiana yaivs, in Dutch Guiana- jas, in French Guiana pians (plural). My opinion is that these are all one word. The identity of yaws and jas is obvious, and from pians, its nasal being a negligible quantity, they differ only by 'the loss of its initial, doubtless to be accounted for by the fact that we took the term not direct 'from French, but through the negro jargon. As to the origin of this pians, it is a Guarani word, one of those which the French borrowed from their quondam Brazilian colonies. Montoya, in his great thesaurus of the Guarani language, 1639, duly enters it as " Pia, bubas, granos." JAS. PLATT, Jun.

DE. BRIGHT'S EPITAPH ix OXFORD CATHE- DRAL. On the memorial brass to the memory of my old friend Dr. Bright, Regius ProfessoV

of Ecclesiastical History, in the south aisle of the Cathedral at Oxford, is inscribed the following: "State super antiquas vias, efe videte qusenam sit via recta et bona, et ambulate in ea."

This is the Vulgate version of Jeremiah vi. 16, and the other day I found the passage cited in Bacon's ' Advancement of Learning ':

" Surely the advice of the prophet is the true- direction in this matter [then the above citation]. Antiquity deserveth that reverence that men should make a stand thereupon, and discover what is the best way ; but when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression." Book ii.

In Job is a similar passage (viii. 8-10) r inscribed on Hearne's tomb in the church- yard of St. Peter-in-the-East, Oxford.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

HORN DANCING. The following paragraph may be interesting as recording a survival still with us :

"The annual custom of horn dancing took place yesterday at Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire. The day, being Wakes Monday, was observed as a holiday, and the unique and droll terpsichorean event attracted quite a number of visitors from London, Liverpool, and the Potteries. The hobby- horse dancers started about nine o'clock, and after a preliminary canter in the village journeyed to Blythfield Hall, the seat of Lord and Lady Bagot, afterwards visiting the houses of the neighbouring gentry. Subsequently they returned to the village and danced up the principal street, receiving cakes and ale and money gifts. One of the troupe has performed for over fifty years. The old-world village presented quite a gay appearance, the green being occupied with swingboats, shooting galleries, and other shows." Liverpool Echo, 8 September, 1903.

W. B. H.

MRS. CORNEY IN 'OLIVER TWIST.' Mrs. Corney, matron of the workhouse where Oliver was born, first appears in chap, xxiii. (or book ii. chap. i. in Bentley's Miscellany, iii. 105, February, 1838). Probably her name was taken by Dickens from Mrs. Corney, 45, Union Street, Middlesex Hospital, landlady of Mrs. Hannah Brown, who was murdered by Jatnes Greenacre at his house in Car- penter's Buildings, Bowyer Lane (now Wyndham Road), Camberwell, on the night of 24 December, 1836. Mrs. Corney gave evidence at the trial on 10 April, 1837.

ADRIAN WHEELER,

HISTORY " MADE ix GERMANY." At a ban- quet in celebration of the hundredth anni- versary of the Hanover Regiment, which took place at Hanover on 19 December, 1903, the German Emperor made the following record : "I raise my glass in contemplation of the past, to the health of the German