Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/66

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. JULY is, im

CAPT. CHARLES GILL, R.N. I shall be glad to learn the parentage and services of Capt. Gill, R.N., who was of Sandgate from 1829 until about 1838.

R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.

" TANNER " = SIXPENCE. According to Mr. Wheat ley (' London Past and Present '), J. Sigismund Tanner, Chief Engineer to the Mint, died in Edwards Street, Portman Square, in 1773.

Was it from this official that the sixpence acquired its slang name of a " tanner " ?

JOHN HEBB.

BENEDICT ARNOLD. -His son was in the 6th Light Horse in India. What became of him ? A. C. H.

JUplfcs.

YANKEE

DOODLE.'
 * KITTY FISHER'S JIG':

(10 S. ix. 50, 98, 197, 236, 337, 471.)

PROBABLY few words in the language have excited greater interest than " Yankee," since for one hundred and forty-three years people have been writing about it ; yet we know as little about its origin now as did the Scotchman who first commented upon it in 1765. Hence new facts about either Yankee or Yankee Doodle are always welcome ; but they must be facts, and not guesses or erroneous statements. DR. GRAT- TAN FLOOD'S communication at the last reference invites the following remarks.

1. " The air itself," says DR. FLOOD, " is genuinely Irish, and was known in Ireland in 1750 as ' All the Way to Galway.' " (a) What proof has DR. FLOOD that the air of ' Yankee Doodle ' and the air of ' All the Way to Galway ' are identical ? (6) If they are identical, what proof has DR. FLOOD that ' All the Way to Galway ' is " genuinely Irish," or that it was known in Ireland in 1750 ?

2. " It," continues DR. FLOOD, referring to the air of ' All the Way to Galway,' " apparently drifted over to England about 1755, in which year Dr. Shuckburgh adapted the words of ' Yankee Doodle ' to it." Dr. Richard Shuckburgh, who died at Schenec- tady (New York) on 16 Aug., 1773, was not in England in 1755, but in America, where for several years he was a surgeon in the British Army first in the Four Independent Companies at New York, later in the 17th

Regiment of Foot. The story about Dr. Shuckburgh having written the words of 4 Yankee Doodle ' did not originate until or after 1815, was not printed until about 1820 (the exact date has never been dis- covered), and, while perhaps true, is with- out one iota of proof in its support.

3. "It caught on at once in America," writes DR. FLOOD, " and was introduced into a comic opera, ' The Disappointment,' by Andrew Barton at Philadelphia, in April, 1767, and published by Samuel Taylor." A period of twelve years is not the present writer's idea of " at once." But, as stated above, there is no proof that ' Yankee Doodle ' was known in this country in 1755, for the 1767 comic opera contains the earliest known allusion to ' Yankee Doodle ' under that name. This play was probably not written by Andrew Barton, and was certainly not published by Samuel Taylor. The title is in part as follows :

" The Disappointment : Or, The Force of Credu- lity. A New American Comic-Opera, Of Two Acts.

By Andrew Barton, Esq New York : Printed in

the Year, M,DCC,LXVII."

The opera was advertised in The Pennsyl- vania Chronicle of 13 April, 1767 (i. 47), to be performed " At the New Theatre in Southwark," Philadelphia, on 20 April ; but in The Pennsylvania Gazette of 16 April (p. 3) it was announced as withdrawn because, "as it contains personal Reflec- tions," it " is unfit for the Stage." A copy of the opera owned by the Library Company of Philadelphia has written in ink on the title-page the words, " by Col. Thomas Forrest of Germantown. S." Who " S." was, I do not know ; but John F. Watson, the historian of Philadelphia, stated in 1830 (' Annals of Philadelphia,' p. 232) that " Mr. Forrest wrote a very humorous play (which I have seen printed)." There can be no doubt that Watson alluded to ' The Disappointment.' The opera was adver- tised in The Pennsylvania Chronicle of 13 April, 1767 (i. 48), as " Just Published, and to be sold at Samuel Taylor's, Book- Binder, at the Corner of Market and Water Streets, price One Shilling and Sixpence." Hence Samuel Taylor was merely the Philadelphia bookseller, not the New York publisher.

4. " The references," remarks DR. FLOOD, " to ' Kitty Fisher ' and to ' Macaroni ' fix the date of the song as between 1755 and 1760." DR. FLOOD has here confused two totally distinct things the ' Yankee Doodle' song and the nursery rime beginning " Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found