Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/258

 210

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io- s. i. MARCH 12, 1904.

The above letter forms an item in a large collection of correspondence, from 1633 to 1828, between the families of Rogerson, Postlethwayt, Gooch, and Kerrich, which has descended to me.

I should not be at all surprised if it is shown that afternoon tea was a recognized institution at a much earlier date than 1744 coeval, in fact, with the introduction of the handsome silver tea-kettles, the precursors of the urns and their special tables, of early Georgian times. Afternoon " China " tea must have been hailed, together with choco- late, as a welcome change from the sage tea, the pennyroyal water, and other infusions which were then taking the place of ale at breakfast and at other times of the day.

At the period of the above letter people

dined at midday 6 P.M., this being

and had rather a

supper about movable feast.

" 'I think now,' said he, ' there remains but one thing more to complete a total regulation of our

ceconomy, which is tea 1 look upon afternoon's

tea as one of the greatest superfluities that custom has introduced among us. I have calculated the expence, and dare venture to affirm that a very moderate tea table, with all its equipage, cannot be supported under forty or fifty pounds per annum.' "

To which the lady replies (inter alia\ "Would ariy gentleman, or man of honour, deny his wife her tea-table !"

EDWARD HERON-ALLEN.

Afternoon tea, which replaced the refresh- ment still known among the labouring classes as "the 4 o'clock," came, therefore, as an acceptable restoration between dinner and supper. As the dinner hour was advanced tea became gradually pushed off, neglected, and finally abandoned, reappearing with its sobering influence after the long, tedious dinners, with their "toasts" and "senti- ments," lasting from 3 or 4 o'clock until it was almost time for the carriages to be ordered.

In the meantime breakfast had become later, a condition brought about by the heavy drinking over night, and luncheon progressed from the light repast, still known among the peasantry as " the 11 o'clock," and took the place, two hours and a half later, of the ancient midday feast. Dinner correspond- ingly advanced, and supplanted the time- honoured supper, leaving so long a gap in the afternoon that tea again became a necessity about forty years ago, and in its turn has also gradually increased in refine- ment and luxury.

Thus has come about a slow transposition of the names and movement in the hours oi meals, a noticeable feature of the present state being that the world which is fashionable gets up and goes to bed very much later save under the pressure of amusement or the business of sport, than it did a hundred and ifty years ago. Afternoon tea, which ha* gone through the most vicissitudes, stands alone of all the meals at the present day a the same time as it did under the auspices o the early Georges. ALBERT HARTSHORNE.

A J j" ^u er rT pla u e in fche book Previousl quoted, The Husband ' (p. 109), the condition of tea is clearly established :

NELSON'S SISTER ANNE (9 th S. xii. 428 ; 10 th S. i. 170). I have been naturally interested in J. W. B.'s account of the elopement of my great-aunt, Anne Nelson. I have her will, which says nothing of the Robinsons or of a son, and is signed in her maiden name. From the account of his children given by her father, the Rev. Edmund Nelson, it appears that from the time she left school till she was nineteen she was apprenticed to a lace ware- house in Ludgate Street, London. Her father ecords that he paid IQOl. for the apprentice- hip. "She is," he writes in 1781, "a free ivoman of the City of London, as her inden- ures are enrolled in the Chamberlain's office." ler uncle, Capt. Maurice Suckling, R.N., left ler a legacy, and 2,000^., a part of this, she lad in the 3 per Cents, when she came of age. From this legacy a premium was paid "or her release from her apprenticeship, when she returned to Burnham Thorpe. This does not look like running away from school, and would rather point to the time of her appren- ticeship for her going wrong. I should be slopement and the birth of her son.
 * lad to know what proof J. W. B. has of this

NELSON. Trafalgar, Salisbury.

SMOTHERING HYDROPHOBIC PATIENTS (10 th S. i. 65, 176). In the middle of the great waste of moorland which lies between Ayr- shire and Wigtownshire, and is traversed by that ancient earthwork known as the De'ils Dyke, probably marking the boundary of the primitive Picts of Galloway, there exists an excedingly interesting groupof early Christian remains. On the fell of Kilgallioch, just within the parish of Kirkco\\an, rise the Wells of the Rees, three in number, within a few yards of each other, each covered with a carefully built dome of stones without mortar, with a square-headed opening for access to the fountain, and above each of these openings a recess, intended either for a pitcher or for the image of a saint. The grey, beehive-like domes stand on a little verdant oasis on the broad fellside of brown