Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/39

 10 s. x. JULY ii, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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England ; but the Wych Street side, subject to many vicissitudes, was at different times used as a pantechnicon, cheap lodging- house, and offices under the title of St. Mary's Chambers.

Although the improvement is now com- plete, and it only requires new buildings to efface entirely all recollection of the old, it is still possible to see recumbent on the declivities of the island site two brick piers with stuccoed rustic ornamentation, which may be authoritatively identified as relics of that ill-judged scheme the Strand Hotel. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

' OLD MOTHER HUBBARD ' : ITS AUTHOR. There are 37 editions of this old nursery rime in the British Museum Library, ranging from the second in 1806 to 1892, and including two translations in 1860 [?] one into Danish, and the other into Dutch. There is also a sequel by W. F., which is a copy of the style in every respect. In a recently published book we get the author's name from a copy of the first edition, which is of sufficient interest to be chronicled in 'N. & Q.' At Kitley, Yealmpton, co. Devon, the seat of the Bastard family, is a small volume, about four inches square, illustrated with little woodcuts. Inside the book is this note :

" Original Presentation Copy of ' Mother Hub- "bard,' written at Kitley by Sarah Catherine Martin, and dedicated to John Pollexfen Bastard, M.P. Mother Hubbard was, as is believed, the house- keeper at Kitley at that time." Then follows the dedication :

" To J. [P.] B. Esq. M.P. County of at whose

suggestion and at whose House these Notable Sketches were designed, this V^ ume i g with all suitable deference Dedicated by his Humble Servant, S. C. M. Published 1 June 1805." Warner's
 * History of Yealmpton,' p. 94.

The initial P. does not occur in the second edition, consequently I have placed it in brackets. It is possible the skit was under- stood by the members of the family at the time, though the meaning is now lost.

The dedication of the sequel is as follows :

" To P. A. County of at whose suggestion these

Notable Sketches were designed : This Volume is with all suitable deference Dedicated by her most Immble Servant, W. F."

The text and illustrations are quite equal to the original. AYEAHR.

RUSHLIGHTS. An old man living at Horley in the beginning of this century remembered the " cast-iron " dish in use for holding the grease through which rushes were drawn " a dozen times backwards pnd forwards." It rested on what he called

" bran-dogs." I have a rough sketch of this, drawn from his description. Con- firmative of this, Aubrey, in 1673, says that at Ockley in Surrey '"the people draw peeled rushes through melted grease, which yields a sufficient light for ordinary use, is very cheap and useful, and burns long." These rushlights were fixed in stands made for the purpose, some of which were high, to stand in the ground, and some low, on the table. These stands had an iron part something like a pair of pliers, and the rush was shifted forward from time to time as it burnt down in the two closing parts that held it (see Cobbett's 'Cottage Eco- nomy'). Cobbett was "bred and brought up mostly by rushlight," and he did not find that he saw less clearly than other people. The rush-holder was in some parts known as " Tom Candlestick," an upright pole, &c., with pincers at its head to hold candles (Hodgson MS., quoted in Heslop's ' North- umberland Glossary ' ; see also examples in the City Museum, Guildhall).

Decayed labourers, women and children used to gather the rushes late in summer. As soon as they were cut they were flung into water and kept there ; otherwise they would dry and shrink, and the peel would not run, that is, the bark could not be stripped from the pith. Of this bark, how- ever, one small strip was left to hold the Eith together. When peeled, they must be leached on grass and take the dew for some nights, after which they were dried in the sun (see Southey's ' Commonplace Book,' 2nd series, p. 350). Rushlights were known to the Romans (vide Fosbroke's 'Encyclo- paedia of Antiquities,' vol. i. p. 229 ; and Pliny, xvi. 37).

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

"THE UPPER THAMES." It may be worth noting that under the new division of the river between the Port of London authority and a new Board for " the Upper Thames," the latter term will mean the river above Teddington. Formerly the Port of London used to extend to Staines, and the law of the Thames in several matters as, for example, fishery and the towing- path is and will continue different below Staines from what it is above. Once upon a time, however, there were two bodies of rulers, afterwards brought together in the Conservancy ; and the Upper Thames Navi- gation meant the river above a much higher point than Staines itself, probably not always the same point at one time Reading.