Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/444

 364

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. xn. NOV. 6, 1900.

Many of the names were very familiar to me some forty years ago, when I was residenf
 * rom 1869 to 1876 in Naples.

No. 3 I take to be the elder son of Mr 'Turner of Iggulden's English Bank at the entrance to the Villa, or public gardens oJ ,the city. His father in or about 1871, when sheltering from a terrible outbreak of cholera in Naples, used to pass the nights at an hotel opposite the railway station at Cava dei Tirreni, kept by an Anglo-Maltese called Ellis, who had served in the Com- missariat at Malta long before. When old Mr. Turner arrived from Naples, I used to torment him with questions concerning the bulletins of mortality issued daily in Naples, ,,nd he, desirous to quell the anxiety which emptied Naples of his English customers, rubbing his hands, as his habit was, with invisible soap, was prepared to pooh-pooh the very existence of cholera as a thing unknown and non-existent, except in dis- eased imaginations. Such conduct I have often since observed in chaplains, bankers, .and other officials when the credit of a foreign city required whitewashing. I may instance Florence, where I have recently ]ost two old friends by typhoid fever, without any warning reaching England jantil after the danger had passed away.

No. 6, the wife of another son, George Turner, was a daughter of an English trades- man in Naples named Pearce.

No. 10, Julie Salis Schwabe (aged 78), I knew pretty well, and she consulted me frequently when her mission to educate Neapolitan children excited much feeling, lest it might lead to proselytism, and .commingling charity with religion. She was the widow of the partner in a great Manchester house, and the inheritor of large means.

Nos. 2 and 13, Robins and Holme, were wives of the steamship agents of consider- able wealth, and I remember being struck by seeing on one of their dinner tables the orthodox port and sherry decanters in a wine-producing country like Italy. Such is the force of custom.

Nos. 5, 15, and 17, Pattison and Guppy family, were owners of large engineering works in Naples long before the rival Arm- strong Company established their firm at Pozzuoli. WILLIAM MERCER.

[For other lists of inscriptions in cemeteries in various countries see 10 S. i. 361, 442, 482 ; ii. 155 ; iii. 361, 433 ; v. 381 ; vi. 4, 124, 195, 302, 406, 446 ; vii. 165 ; viii. 62, 161, 242, 362, 423 ; ix. ; 224, 344. 443 ; x. 24, 223, 324, 463 ; xi. 25, .J63, 325 ; xii. 106, 183.]

THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER IN AMERICA : " POPE NIGHT." When I was a boy at Portsmouth, New Hampshire (my native town), more than sixty years ago, the younger element used to celebrate with a good deal of vigour the evening of the 5th of November, known as " Pope Night." For a period of ten days or more previous to that momentous date there was blowing of horns when the boys were put of school, and could attend to that business. On the 5th, as soon as it got dark, boy after boy would go out into the street carrying a " pumpkin lantern," and soon these weird contrivances would be seen " all over town." A pumpkin had been " scooped out," eyes, nose, and mouth rudely carved, and a candle set inside the light of which produced the desired grotesque effect. Horns were blown at a terrific rate. We did all this in pious memory of Guy Fawkes. Usually there was a pitched battle betewen North-End boys and South-Enders.

Portsmouth is the " Rivermouth " of Thomas Bailey Aldrich's ' Story of a Bad Boy.' That delightful writer tells of the feud between North End and South End, but says nothing of " Pope Night." The custom of celebrating the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot came direct from England. Among the many changes at " Strawberry Banke" (as Portsmouth was anciently called), may be numbered the cessation of
 * his observance of the 5th of November.

FRANK WARREN HACKETT. 1418, M Street, Washington, B.C.

[Numerous accounts of Guy Fawkes celebrations n England having appeared so recently as 10 S. x. 584, 434, 496, further contributions on the subject re not desired.]

OLD LONDON BRIDGE : ITS FOUNDATIONS.

A few years ago there was a dredger at


 * vork on the Thames close to London

Bridge, and I was told by the engineer in

jharge, to whom I paid a visit on the

dredger in search of antiquities, that if I

lad called a few days before I could have

ecured bits of the foundations of Old London

Bridge, which for hours had merrily rattled

nto the steel hopper barges, and were

afterwards taken to sea. L. L. K.

QUEEN'S THEATRE, 1704. I have in my possession the original engraved silver plate m which is the inscription recording the aying of the " corner stone " of the Queen's Theatre in 1704. It is in a magnificent tate of preservation, although over 200 /ears old, and the engraving is very beautiful, and as " sharp " as though done yesterday.