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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL JUNE 19, im

their plays to the court, and might boldly after- wards act them, and the composers would with more care and study, examine their labours, knowing that they should pass the strict censure of him that could understand them ; and by this means would good comedies be written, and the thing intended by them most easily attained to, viz., entertainment of the people, the good opinion of Spanish wits, the profit and security of the players, and the saving of the care that is now employed in chastising their rashness."

ST. SWITHIN.

SUSSEX RELIC : ITS DISAPPEARANCE. According to several guide-books, there is to be found at Howbourne, near Buxted, a relic of the Sussex iron-founding days in the shape of a hammer-post, nine and a half feet high, formed of an oak tree, and in excellent preservation. At Whitsuntide, whilst cycling in the Weald, I made the journey to How- bourne for the purpose of inspecting this interesting curiosity, but was grieved to learn that it was no longer in existence. How, and exactly when it disappeared I could not ascertain. The site of the mill-pond and the stream by which it was fed were pointed out to me by the very courteous proprietor of Howbourne Farm, who, however, admitted that he had never set eyes on the hammer- post. His opinion was that it was destroyed some thirty or forty years ago. A slab of Sussex iron embedded in the soil of the farm-yard, the top side being just visible, is, indeed, the only relic of the old-time manu- facture which was carried on at Howbourne.

I hope that the above information will save readers of ' N. & Q.' from making a fruitless journey similar to mine. I might mention that an excellent woodcut of the hammer-post is to be found in Lower's Contributions to Literature.'

JOHN B. TWYCROSS. Streatham Hill.

RAILWAY TRAVELLING REMINISCENCES. (See 10 S. viii. 167, 234, 292, 357, 414, 473.) The following paragraph will doubtless form a welcome addition to the contribu- tions at the above references. It is taken from the third chapter (28 May) of Dr. Eugene Stock's ' Recollections of a Septuagenarian ' Jiow being published weekly in The Church f amuy Newspaper :

" I have spoken of railway stations. I might say something of railway travelling in those days. Railway directors would indeed have stared at demands for third-class by all trains, or for third-class carriages that would protect the

G f fl r ? m, Wind , and rain ; or at demands, even for first-class only, for dining-cars or sleeping- carriages or heating apparatus. Even foot- warmers were unknown then. I remember the luggage being strapped outside on the roofs of

the carriages, as in the oid coaching days, and the guard sitting up behind on a seat somethir g like that of a hansom cabman. T more than ouci> travelled third-class in an open truck, only differing from a ccal-truck in having a bare wooden seat. When the first excursion trains to Brighton were started, the bills announced :

' Jirst-class, shillings ; covered carriages,

shillings' (I forget the fares). 'Covered

carriages ' meant trucks with a roof raised on iron rods, but with the sides open ; and the fact that they were thus ' covered ' was considered a great boon. I have several times taken jour- neys of five and six hours in them. Second-class carriages, which were generally used by people unwilling to pay first - class fares, were much inferior to our present third. As regards speed, I once went from London to Brighton second- class by ' express train,' which took two hours, stopping five or six times. All fares were much higher than now. Every railway was bound by Act of Parliament to run one train a day at a penny a mile (now the third-class fare by all trains) ; but they observed the law by starting the train about 6 A.M., making it stop at every station, and only putting on it the commonest carriages. Such a train was called ' the Parly ' (short for Parliamentary). The one for Ply- mouth left London at 5 or 6 A.M., was shunted to let faster trains pass many times in the day, and reached its destination about 10 P.M. We can understand the point of a riddle which appeared in Punch : ' Why does the business of the country get on so slowly ? Because it travels by a Parliamentary train.' "

JOHN T. PAGE.

" CULPRIT." Concerning this word the ' N.E.D.' quotes from Blount's ' Law Dic- tionary ' to the effect that it is made up of two Norman French words, viz., cid and prit, the first being an abbreviation of culpabilis, which is

" a reply of a proper officer in the behalf of the King affirming the party to be guilty after he had pleaded not guilty, without which the issue is not joined ; the other word 'prit,'' i e., ready, and is as much as to say that he is ready to prove the party guilty.'

In a foot-note to the ' Birds ' of Aris- tophanes, 1. 448 in Hickie's Bohn translation, p. 326, a less clumsy derivation is proposed :

"'O, yes,' '0, yes,' is the Norman French oyez. oyez. In like manner we have ' culprit,' i.e., qu'il paroit, ' curfew,' i.e., couvre feu, &c. ;

and this in the circumstances of the case seems to be the better etymology from my own experience of legal phraseology.

N. W. HILL. New York.

" NONESOPRETTIES." (See 9 S. x. 88.) " Ribbons, tapes, nonesoprettys" are adver- tised as imported and sold by Caleb Blanchard of Boston, Mass., in The Boston Evening Post, June 28, 1762.

RICHARD H. THORNTON.

36, Upper Bedford Place.