Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/384

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL APRIL 17, im

was that in the former the ball was struck before it touched the ground when dropped from the hands, and in the latter it was struck at the moment it touched the ground. A " punt " was not a slovenly stroke, but one requiring considerable practice to do well, and it was sometimes very useful. In a tight place where there was no room to " dropkick," a smart " punt into touch " would sometimes relieve a hard-pressed side wonderfully. In derivation the word has no connexion with its homonym meaning a boat. I believe it was a schoolboy word importing to deal a hard blow, a corruption of "to pound " or "to punch," or an amalgam of the two.

" Punt," a boat, is derived from Lat. pont-, stem of pons, a bridge or way. In its earliest use it was, I think, applied only to a ferry boat which supplied a pons or passage across a stream. A string of these across a stream formed a pontoon bridge. I am under the impression that in the Transvaal the word is used to denote any crossing of a stream, even a ford. Here it gets back to the early meaning of pons.

H. D. ELLIS.

The following instances of the use of the word date from before 1857.

In 1897 a Committee of Old Rugbeians published a Report on the Origin of Rugby Football (Rugby, A. J. Lawrence). Ap- pendix A consists of " the Laws of Football as played at Rugby School, sanctioned by a Levee of Bigside on the 7th of September, 1846. Rugby : Crossley & Billington." Rules XVII. and XXVIII. deal with punt- ing :

XVII. " The ball when punted must be within, and when caught without, the line of goal."

XXVIII. " If a player take a punt when he is not entitled to it, the opposite side may take a punt or drop, without running (after touching the ball on the ground), if the ball has not touched two hands, but such drop may not be a goal."

In ' Recollections of Rugby by an Old Rugbeian,' London, Hamilton & Adams, 1848, the following passage occurs on p. 133 :

" Could I relate what ' punts,' what ' drops,' what ' places,' drew forth the admiration of both sides."

A. T. M. on p. 257 describes accurately the nature of the " punt," but he is not correct in describing it as " slovenly." In right circumstances the punt was necessary, and under many conditions it was desirable, though of course generally it was not such scientific play as drop-kicks. The

" Old Rugbeian " already quoted writes on p. 132 :

" The ball flew unerring toward the southern goal, passing far beyond the opposing host,. until it fell into the expectant arms of one who with a mighty punt, returned it to the place from whence it came."

Evidently to the mind of the writer of 1848 there was nothing of necessity slovenly in a punt.

With regard to the derivation of the word, school slang, like the Nile, celat origines, and it is likely that if it could be found it would as much resemble " punt " as tu doces re- sembles " tea-chest." C. S. TAYLOR.

Banwell.

"MASTER PIPE MAKER" (10 S. xi. 10). Possibly W. T. Vincent's ' Records of the Woolwich District,' circa 1888, will afford some information as to such a local industry as that of tobacco-pipe making. Or may the pipe-making have been a different industry, altogether unassociated with tobacco ? The owner was a shipwright

also. J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

JEWS IN FICTION (10 S. xi. 169, 254). A Jew in fiction not mentioned in the HON. MRS. STEWART'S list is Premium in ' The School for Scandal.' WALTER SCARGILL.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (10 S. xi. 248). The lyric beginning

Weep not for friends departed is one of a series " imitated from the German" by Thomas Oliphant, for an early English edition of some of Franz Schubert's songs, published by Cramer, Addison & Beale.

E. RlMBATJLT DlBDIN.

The source of De Quincey's quotation given by V. H. C. is Martial, Ep. IX. xi. 17 :

Qui Musas colimus severiores. It is the last line of the poem on the name of Domitian's cupbearer Earinus, beginning

Nomen cum vi olis rosisque natum.

EDWARD BENSLY. Aberystwyth.

De Quincey's quotation is from Martial's Epigrams, Book IX. xii. :

Nobis non licet esse tarn disertis, Qui Musas colimus severiores.

M. A. M. MACALISTER. Torrisdale, Cambridge.

Under the heading ' Exceeding Great and Precious Promises,' the hymn about which inquiry is made by MR. R. C. C. WILLIAMS appeared in Rippon's ' Selection,' in 1787, in seven four-line stanzas. Its authorship