Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/255

 10 s. x. SEPT. 12, 1903.J NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the fires whooping and yelling, the climax being the pulling, by one half of the ring, of the other half through the fire. Then we all joined in kicking out the fire, scatter- ing the remains in all directions. Who taught us this I do not know. I only know that we did it as a part of our play.

THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop.

NETMAKER'S CIRCULAR. I have recently come across a curious trade circular of, I think, eighteenth-century date. It refers to " George Feme, netmaker and seedsman at the Raven opposite Water-Lane, Fleet Street, London," who

"Serves Merchants, Captains of Ships, &c., with all sorts of Nets, Lines, Twines ana Seeds, for exportation : viz., Sein-net, Trawl, Turtle-net, Drag-net, Fransel-net, Salmon-net, Casting-net, Partridge-net, Quail-net, Lark-net, Day-net, Tunnel- net, Hay-net, Bow-net, Toil for deer, Fence netting for sheep."

Mr. Feme also advertises " Horse-nets of all sorts, made of the best silk, or thread twist," and

" Musketo-nets for beds; lines and twines for making or mending of nets ; with many other sorts. Likewise all sorts of garden and grass seeds, flower-roots, evergreens, forest trees, and flowering shrubs, at the most reasonable rates." Probably the early London Directories would settle the date of the above. P. M.

ELECTRICITY IN AGRICULTURE. From time to time I have been allowed to chronicle in these pages various gradual changes which have been made in rural life. For instance, at 7 S. xi. 422 I described the substitution of a permanent scaffolding for the old single hop-poles.

We are now threatened with a far worse innovation. I have not seen it, but it is graphically set forth in The Times, 15 July, from which I give these short quotations :

'"Electricity in Agriculture.' The method is

to stretch over the field a number of wires on poles, something like low telegraph wires, but high enough for loaded wagons to go underneath. The wires are quite thin and are supported by posts in long parallel spans, about 30 ft. apart, and extend over all the acreage. The system is connected with a

generator and the charge fizzes off from the

wires with a sound which is sometimes audible, and with a glow which is visible in the dark. Any one walking about below can feel the effect on the hair of the head "

The yield of wheat is said to be increased 40 per cent. It has been done in Warwick- shire. What becomes of " the simple life," " out-of-door life," and " back to the land "

after this !

W. C. B.

[See also 7 S. ii. 266 ; 8 S. ii. 264 ; viii. 485.]

NESTORIAN TABLET IN SI-NGAN Foo. This marble tablet, said to have been dis- overed by the Jesuits in 1625, and recording the establishment of the Christian religion in China during the T'ang dynasty in the seventh and eighth centuries, is described in Alexander Wylie's ' Chinese Researches ' (Shanghai, 1897). He defends ts genuineness against Prof. Salisbury of Yale College, who declared it to be a forgery. If we are to believe an American paper of 4 June, 1908, the tablet has ecently been brought to Boston, U.S.A.,
 * >y a British ship, and the local museum

authorities are endeavouring to buy it from Dount von Holm, a Danish gentleman,
 * >he present owner. According to Wylie,

some years ago the American Oriental Society passed a resolution ' that the American missionaries be requested to
 * ake some measures, as they may have opportunity,

n order that the monument be revisited, its present condition described, and a new facsimile of the whole inscription taken, by some competent person, and made accessible to the learned."

Count von Holm, it now appears, has given the members of the American Oriental Society an opportunity to see the original without leaving their native country.

L. L. K.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

SOUTHEY ON A NEWCASTLE MlRACLE.

But few people in these days trouble them- selves to read the letters of Robert Southey, although they are, in by far the greater part, both interesting and instructive. I have just come upon a tale he tells which will amuse the folk-lorists of the North Country who have not hitherto met with it. It would be interesting to know how the tale arose, and if there are other versions of it, either in print or preserved in the minds of men. There are, I imagine, parallels of it elsewhere : if there be such, it would be well to put them on record ere it is too late.

" A man of reprobate character [in the neighbour- hood of Newcastle] was playing at cards so late on Saturday night that somebody warned him to leave off, because, as the Irishman says, it was Sunday morning. The fellow replied that he would sit there till the day of judgment, and immediately as he uttered the words he passed away. This is the phrase here for dying, and the very words in which one of our maids has just related the story. Well,