Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/46

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. JULY n, iocs.

Captain Bolea, though a young man of about thirty, had his Hair all turn'd gray, to the admiration of a,ll the World, and of the Duke of Alva himself, who question'd him about it, but he would confesse nothing." Ho wel's 'Epistolae Ho-Elianse,' Letter xxviii., to Mr. R. L. Marchant.

I quote from the edition of 1645, sec. 4, pp. 38-9. The sequel to the story is in- teresting, but the passage is too long to transcribe.

I have also just come across the following passage in * Cameos from English History,' by the author of ' The Heir of Redclyffe,' Sixth Series, p. 54 :

"One of those who were moulded by it [the preaching of Fran?ois de Sales] was a young widow, Jeanne Francpise de Chantal. She was the daughter of Benique Fremyot, the President of the Parlia- ment of Dijon, a good old man, and so staunch both to loyalty and Catholicism, that the tidings that the Huguenot Henri IV. had become king caused him such distress as to turn half his hair white in one night."

WM. H. PEET.

Thirty years ago the adjutant of an English yeomanry cavalry regiment was a gallant officer who had been in the Indian Mutiny, and whose hair had suddenly become white through intense anxiety for his wife, who was placed in a position of great peril. This happily passed, and the united pair survived for a lengthened period to tell the tale. I do not pledge myself to "a single night," but in the above instance the hair grew white in some short period closely approximate. W. B. H.

In ' The Life of "Lord" George Sanger,' 1908, p. 56, there is an account of a well- known actor named Clark, with luxuriant brown curls, taking to his bed for a week from fright, and when next he appeared Among his friends his hair was as white as driven snow. Clark was attended by a doctor. There cannot be any doubt about the truth of Mr. Sanger' s statement. Clark appears to have been a strong but super- stitious man. When writing my volume ' At the Sign of the Barber's Pole,' I came across several instances of the hair turning suddenly white through fright, but the one indicated by Mr. Sanger is far better than .any other I have read.

WILLIAM ANDREWS. Hull Royal Institution.

Physiological science affirms that it is a physical impossibility for the hair to turn suddenly white. Pathology, even, has no theory by which to account for it. Kaposi, of Vienna, says that " neither a single hair, nor all the hairs together, can turn grey

otherwise than gradually : they cannot be- come grey suddenly." He mentions, how- ever, one case reported by Dr. Landois ; and Pfaff, who has experimentally turned hairs white by chlorine, believes it possible that a fluid having a very rapidly cauterizing or bleaching action may be secreted by the skin under the influence of intense mental action. " Who shall decide when doctors disagree ? " Meanwhile the his- torical instances are numerous : Marie An- toinette, on the night following the discovery of the king at Varennes ; Sir Thomas More, after his sentence ; King Lewis of Bavaria, when he had condemned his wife to death ; shipwrecked people ; and many others. Byron could hardly be expected to hold out against such an array of evidence. Indeed, in his day the possibility would hardly have been denied by any but skin specialists, and even they were, presumably, not more unanimous than they are now, a hundred years later. J. FOSTER PALMER.

8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

[MR. M. L. R. BRESLAR also refers to Howel.]

WHITE COCK v. THE DEVIL (10 S. ix. 486). The pure white cock as a potent factor in rebutting the approaches of Satan is one of the features of British folk-lore. He is not only the ornament, but the efficient protector of the premises to which he is attached ; he is a delight to look upon, and his opportune crowing steadily averts disaster. An apposite illustration of the legendary services one of his class rendered aforetime was till quite recently associated with the seaboard of Fif eshire. It is averred that a sailing craft, awaiting cargo, was once lying off shore directly opposite a large farm on a headland, and that twice at midnight those keeping watch noticed that a meteor, manifestly descending upon the farmer's stacks, was instantly deflected and carried into indefinite space when the white cock crew. The curiosity of these observant mariners having been keenly aroused by the repetition of such a notable incident, they somewhat heartlessly resolved to verify the conclusion to which they had been inferentially driven. To trace an effect to its undoubted cause is one of the distinctive glories of humanity, and the process may have appropriate illustration, even in the speculative enterprise of those whose business it is to convey potatoes in a coasting sloop. Thus it came about that, after a hard bargain with the reluctant farmer presently destined, no doubt, to suffer repentance and poignant remorse