Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/383

 10 s. x. OCT. 17, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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K. P. D. E. will find all he wants to know by referring to ' The Encyclopaedia Britannica,' Supp., vol. xxvi. (1902) p. 575, where there is an excellent article on ' Capital Punishment ' (the Latin sentence will be found there), and to the biographies of Sir William Wallace in the ' D.N.B.' and in ' Chambers's Encyclo- paedia,' and also to the article ' Treason ' in that encyclopaedia.

The following extract from the article on ' Capital Punishment ' may interest your readers :

"The modes of capital punishment in England under the Saxon and Danish kings were various : hanging, beheading, burning, drowning, stoning, and precipitating from rocks. The principle on which this variety depends is that where an offence was such as to entitle the king to outlaw the offender, he forfeited all, life and limb, lands and goods, and that the king might take his life and choose the mode of death. William the Conqueror would not permit judgment of death to be executed, and substituted mutilation; but his successors varied somewhat in their policy as to capital punishment, and by the thirteenth century the penalty of death became by usage (without legisla- tion) the usual punishment for high and petty treason, and for all felonies (except mayhem and petty larceny, i.e. theft of property worth less than Is,).

HARRY B. POLAND.

Inner Temple.

THROAT-CUTTING AT PUBLIC EXECUTIONS (10 S. x. 128, 236). There is nothing about that in the following account of the execution of traitors at York in November, 1746 ; and so far SIR HARRY B. POLAND'S assertion is confirmed. I send it because I think the testimony of procedure is interesting, and perhaps not too horrible for students of bygone punitive methods to face. On Satur- day, 1 Nov., 1746, ten rebels were brought from the Castle to the Tyburn without Micklegate Bar on three sledges.

" When they had hung ten minutes, the execu- tioner cut them down, laid their bodies on a stage built for that purpose, and stripped them naked. Capt. Hamilton was the first whose heart was taken out, which the executioner threw into the iire, crying out, ' Gentlemen, behold the heart of a traitor.' When he came to the last man, which was Frazier, he said, ' Gentlemen, behold the heart of the last traitor. God save King George ! ' Upon which the spectators gave a loud huzza. Then he scored each of their arms and legs, but did not cut them off, crying, 'Good people, behold the four quarters of a traitor ; ' and when he had finished that part of the operation, he chopped off their heads, beginning with Frazier, and ending with Hamilton, which finished the execution. The whole of the proceedings was conducted throughout with the utmost decency and good order." 'Criminal Chronology of York Castle,' pp. 60, 61.

ST. SwiTHIN.

BAAL-FIRES (10 S. x. 206, 251). MR. HESLOP, quoting ante, p. 252, from the Ordinary of the Incorporated Company of Cooks of Newcastle-upon-Tyne that " the said fellowship of Cookes shall yearely of theire oune cost and charge mainteigne and keep the bonefires according to the auncient custome of the said toune," &c., observes that the custom is still maintained, but that "it is no longer a fire of bones, but a pile of faggots." MR. HESLOP has seemingly fallen into a slight error, " bonefires " in the extract being simply the old spelling of 1 " bonfire." F. A. RUSSELL.

WATERLOO : CHARLOTTE (10 S. x. 190, 232, 271). I dp not think that MR. HENRY BRADLEY is justified in his belief that the pronunciation " Watterlo " by dialect speakers at Sheffield points to " a survival from the time when it was still fashionable to give to this foreign name its native sound." When I was resident in Sheffield thirty years ago the word " water " was commonly pro- nounced " watter " by the uneducated. As a very young man from London, I could not fail to be surprised at the vagaries of a dialect which called " the water," " t' watter " ; " half-past," " hafe-passt " ; and yet gave to my Southron " ha'penny " the sound- value indicated by its proper undipped spelling. HAMMOND HALL.

Only the other day I heard a woman call to her companion, " Charlotty ! " Nor should I say that this pronunciation is rare, though the name is less rare than was the case years ago.

There was a good deal said about Waterloo when I was a boy, and for the most part the name was sounded ' ' Watterlo. ' ' Scarcely any one said " water " : either " watter " or " wayter." THOS. R.ATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

[Reply from C. C. B. next week.]

EDWARDS OF HALIFAX (10 S. ix. 510; x. 54, 94). According to Ormerod, "Mr. Edwards of Halifax " was the purchaser, at the end of the eighteenth century, of the Library of the Bradshawes of Marple, Cheshire, partly formed by, and mentioned in the will of, John Bradshawe, the celebrated President of the High Court of Justice (d. 1659). Ormerod states that this library was subsequently sold by " Messrs. Edwards of Pall Mall." The books were put into one catalogue with the libraries of N. Wilson, Esq., of Pontefract and two deceased anti- quaries ; and the entire collection, according to a writer in Gent. Mag., vol. Ixxxvi. part i.