Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/543

 10 s. XL JUNE s, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

THE BANK-NOTE SANDWICH. There ap- pear to be several versions of the famous story of the lady who ate a bank-note between two slices of bread-and-butter. The first, in chronological order, is Horace Walpole's well-known anecdote of Fanny Murray. "It is the year of contraband marriages," he writes to George Montagu on 20 Oct., 1748,

I liked her spirit in an instance I heard t' other night : she was complaining of want of money ; Sir Richard Atkins immediately gave her a twenty-pound note ; she said, ' Damn your twenty pound, what does that signify I ' clapped it between two pieces of bread-and-butter, and eat it," ' Letters " (Toynbee), ii. 346.
 * ' but I do not find Fanny Murray's is certain.

Casanova, however, relates a similar tale of Kitty Fisher :

" Le maitre de la maison me conta que cette fameuse miss [Kitty Fisher] avait ava!6 sur un pain beurre une bank-note de cent livres. . . ."
 * Me"moires ' (Brussels, 1871), vi. 35.

This anecdote is corroborated by no less an authority than George Hanger, who in the course of his ' Advice to Lovely Cyprians' gives the following counsel :

" I would not have you undervalue or despise money as much as the celebrated Kitty Fisher.* Indeed, in these days notes of that value are not o plenty ; for scarcely do I ever see a note for one hundred pounds." ' The Life, Adventures, and Opinions r Col. George Hanger' (1801), i. 136.

Further corroboration will be found in an amusing little satire called ' The Modern Ship of Fools ' (William Millar, 1807), p. 92, which tells us :

" In our 'own country a courtesan, Kitty Fisher, to display her contempt for money, and turn the fool into ridicule who thought her favours were to be so cheaply purchased, swal- lowed, between two slices of bread-and-butter, the donation of a fifty pounds bank bill, which had been so presented to her."

Grantley Berkeley in his ' Recollections ' declares that Mrs. Baddeley the actress was the heroine of the "bank-note sandwich," tory, and says that the money was presented to her by a near relation of George III.

Can readers of ' N. & Q.' supply any other version of this familiar anecdote ?

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

between two slices of bread-and-butter."
 * She ate a hundred - pound bank - note

SIB HUMPHREY GILBERT'S LAST WORDS. It is said that Sir H. Gilbert encouraged his men by saying, " The way to heaven is as near by sea as by land " ; but as he and all in his ship perished off Newfoundland in 1583, his last words cannot be known. Similar words are ascribed by Stow (quoted by Gasquet) to Friar Elston when threatened with drowning by the Council of Henry VIII. in 1533 : " We know the way to heaven to be as ready by water as by land." Tht saying seems to be proverbial ; is there any earlier instance ? J. B.

PAN-GERMANIC PRESS. Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' give the names of the leading daily, weekly, or monthly organs of the Welt-Politik or Pan-Germanic party ?

KOM OMBO.

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR AND BARKING. In ' Memorials of Old Essex,' p. 5, it is stated that after the coronation of the Conqueror he " retired to Barking Abbey, and there received the homage and allegiance of several English nobles." Local historians of Barking, &c., give a similar account.

In Freeman's 'William the Conqueror,' however, it is related that " at Berkhamp- stead Edgar himself, with several bishops and chief men, came to make their sub- mission. They offered the crown to William, and after some debate he accepted it."

Do these accounts relate to the same event ? If so, was it at Barking or Berkhampstead that the Saxon nobles submitted ? Did the event take place before or after William's coronation ? What do the earliest and most authoritative historians say on the subject ? G. H. W.

PETER FADDY. Where can any details be found of Peter Faddy ? He came to England in 1742, was Military Secretary to the Duke of Cumberland, George II. 's third son, and died in 1804.

G. STEELE-PERKINS, M.D.

ORME'S ' BATTLE OF THE NILE.' Where is the original of (also a key to) Daniel Orme's ' Battle of the Nile ' (with Lord Nelson in foreground), August, 1798 ?

G. STEELE-PERKINS, M.D.

JOHN PAUL OR PAUL JONES. I have lately seen two undoubted signatures by John Paul (afterwards known as " Paul Jones " ). I am told by Dr. Warner that there are no " John Paul " autographs in the British Museum, and all the inquiries which I have made have only elicited infor-