Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/505

 10 S. XL MAY 22, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

417

to judge by in the way the animal obeys. It is of farm-horses I write. A well-trained ploughing team require very few words indeed. THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

In Lincolnshire and some other counties the farm labourer walks on the left side of the shaft-horse when driving a cart or waggon. " Comether " is the call- word used to induce the horse to walk by his side.

COM. Lrsrc.

When a boy at Pembroke, South Wales, T often heard carters use the word "' comether " or rather compound word ; but it always sounded like " Come hither," of which it is no doubt a contraction, and was generally followed by " woo " : hoss " ; and sometimes " Gee woo comither," or " Comither gee woo," according to cir- cumstances. J. BROWN.
 * ' Comither woo " ; sometimes " Come here,

88, St. Leonard's Road, Hove.

As in the North-East of Scotland, so in the West of Ireland " comether " is com- monly used by the peasantry as a verb. Thus a mother wanting her child to go to .her, calls out imperatively : " Comether at wanst."

There is little doubt that the word in <juestion is a corruption of " come hither."

HENRY SMYTH.

Stanmore Road, Edgbaston.

"SHIBBOLETH" (10 S. x. 408; xi. 36, 233). The Kansas story, at the page last cited, is amusing, but (says the man among those now living best qualified to judge, but whom I have no permission to name) " is a mere fabrication. Neither the Missourians nor the Kansas fanners had cows or bears to use for shibboleths ; and I never heard of a bear in Kansas. No doubt the two parties tested each other by the pronunciations, but most of the B'ree State settlers went from west of Lake Erie to Xansas."

Britons habitually get such distorted ideas of things American that the story should not pass unchallenged. Abundant and authentic information as to early Kansas and the Free State agitation will appear in F. B. Sanborn's ' Recollections of Seventy Years,' to be published here this month.

ROCKINGHAM. Boston, Mass.

"STICK TO YOUR TUT" (10 S. xi. 307). There is a game for boys and girls called " tut-ball," A row of boys and girls stand along a wall, and one in front holds a ball. This is " chucked " to the first one in the

row, who hits it away with the palm of the hand, and then sets off at a run for the first of a number of " tuts " or points which have been selected within a short distance of the goal the wall. If the one who has chucked the ball can recover it, and hit the runner with it before he gets to the first " tut," the runner takes the place of the chucker, who goes to the end of the row by the wall. No player must leave his " tut " until the next one takes the run, and once away from a " tut " he must not return, but go on to the next. There are several niceties in the game, one of which is " baw- kin," that is, pretending to chuck the ball, when a player may be tempted to start. Another is that no player may start to run until the ball has been knocked away. " Chuck " is the proper word, as the ball must not be thrown to the one who heads the row by the wall-side.

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

["Tut-ball" resembles in many respects " rounders " as played by boys in London.]

In South Northamptonshire " tut " is a display of temper. When a person takes offence, he is said to " take tut." Such an expression as " Now then, don't take tut," may still be often heard in the villages. Both Baker and Sternberg catalogue the word, and also " tutty "= short-tempered.

JOHN T. PAGE.

MARIE ANTOINETTE'S DEATH MASK (10 S. xi. 327). Francis Herve says that the Queen of France on the 16th of October, 1793, was conveyed from prison to the scaffold. " Madame Tussaud, having heard that the Queen's hair had turned grey, and that she was so emaciated and altered as scarcely to be recognizable," and desiring to know if " so great a change could have taken place in so short a period, went to a friend's house for the purpose of seeing " her pass by. " As soon, however, as the dreadful cavalcade came in sight, Madame Tussaud fainted, and saw no more." These extracts are from my copy of ' Madame Tussaud's Memoirs and Reminiscences of France,' edited by Francis Herve, 1838, pp. 361-2.

This does not seem to authenticate the mask in the Marylebone Road exhibition, and no mention is made,, in the 506 pages of the book of Madame having taken such a remarkable cast, though other casts are mentioned as having been taken by this clever lady. The fact of her fainting and seeing " no more " is against the accuracy of the Tussaud exhibition catalogue.