Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/302

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XIL SEPT. 25, im

and is said to have been formerly the pro perty of Joan Shakspear, the poet's sister and to have descended, with the other effect in the Birthplace, to the Hart family, he descendants, who occupied the house.

In 1793 the then owner, Thomas Hart fifth from Joan, having no children, directec Ms relative Thomas Hornby to rent th Birthplace, and exhibit this and the othe relics. In 1820 his widow left, and removec this statuette and the other relics to a house almost opposite. At her death the statuett was purchased by the family of the late owner, and for many years lay hidden -away in the store cupboard of a recluse -an old lady of Bath, whose house was crammed with pictures and curios, and who recently died at a great age.

The statuette resembles the monumenta bust and the Droeshout print, thus tending to confirm its authenticity, for these alone (and perhaps the cast) can be looked upon as authentic likenesses.

The statuette is roughly carved, and from it Kent and Scheemakers are said to have taken their design for the Westminster Abbey monument in 1741.

Such is the account given of this interesting relic, and there is nothing unlikely in Joan having a likeness of her illustrious brother carved out of the tree he planted, as a memorial of him. A. B. G.

THE ELECTROPHONE AND LORD ROSE BERY. Another record of the enterprise of the British press is worthy of a note. The afternoon edition of The Evening News of Friday, the 10th of September, contained a verbatim report of the speech delivered by Lord Rosebery at Glasgow that after- noon. Lord Rosebery began his speech soon after two o'clock, and closed it a little before four, and within a short time the paper, with the full report, was in the hands of the newsvendors in Fleet Street.

The Evening News told how this was accomplished. Attached to the rostrum of the Glasgow City Hall were the electro- phone transmitters in tiny brass fittings, so unobtrusive that it is doubtful whether many of the;vast audience noticed them. In a room at Carmelite House, Carmelite Street, sat twelve shorthand reporters, each with a receiver at his ears. Connecting these two distant points was a total length of 2,000 miles of telephone wires, weighing 1,600,000 Ib. The Daily Telegraph of the next day mentioned that the Electrophone Company had invited a number of press representatives to their London office to listen

to Lord Rosebery, whose words were so distinctly heard that he might have been present in the room.

This mode of reporting differs somewhat from the days of The Morning Star. When John Bright made an important speech at Manchester or Birmingham, a special engine would be in waiting to bring the reporters' copy to London the same night, so that it might appear in The Morning Star the following day. These reports always had the head-line " By Special Engine." JOHN C. FRANCIS.

ACTOR VERSUS PREACHER. In ' Village Dialogues,' vol. iii. p. 47, occurs the following remark :

" The actor is allowed to represent imaginary things, as though they were real ; while the minister of the truths of God is to be stigmatized as a madman, unless he represents real things as though they were imaginary.

One might be led to attribute this epigram- matic reflection to Rowland Hill, if it were not for the familiar anecdote of an actor who bestowed a valuable hint on a preacher who wondered why his sermons were not more stirring than they proved to be.

ST. SWITHIN.

DOZMARE POOL AND TREGEAGLE. - In

searching for other matter in The Zoologist,

Second Series, vol. viii. p. 3394 (1873),

I came upon a paper signed John Gat-

combe, which contains an interesting frag-

ment of folk-lore that it would be well to

reproduce in '1ST. & Q.' Dozmare Pool is

' on the Cornish moors, in the parish of

St. Neot, and not far from the Bodmin

road." It is about a mile in circumference,

'and the formation of such a body of water on

ligh ground is considered singular and curious.

There is a popular legend attached to this pool,

which is this^ that a person named Tregeagle, rich

nd powerful, but very wicked, guilty of murder

nd other heinous crimes, lived near this place, and

hat after his death his spirit haunted the neigh-

>ourhood, but was at length exorcised and laid to

est in Dozmare Pool ; but having in his lifetime

'isppsed of his soul and body to the wicked one,

is infernal majesty takes great pleasure in tor-

menting him by imposing on him difficult tasks,

uch as spinning a rope with sand, and dipping out

he pool with a limpet-shell with a hole in the

ottqm, &c., and at times amuses himself with

unting him over the moors with his hell-hounds,

t which time Tregeagle is heard to howl and roar

n a most dreadful manner, so that ' roaring and

owling like Tregeagle ' is no uncommon expression

mongst the people of Cornwall ; indeed, many

would not go near the place after dark for the

" Now I must not dismiss this subject without lentioning what happened during our visit to this lysterious pool. The day being exceedingly hot,