Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/575

 10 s. xii. DEO. 11, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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ever buttoned, and is not very unlike the coat worn to-day by many of our clergymen. It, or something much the same, is worn by the Khedive of Egypt, other Pashas, &c.

As to the English name used in France for a " dinner jacket," it is usually, I think,
 * ' smoker " (pronounced " smokere "), not
 * ' smoking.' 1

For " Stambouline " see the last edition of Larousse the illustrated edition in .several big volumes.

ROBEBT PlEBPOINT.

JOHN MICHELL, MAYOR OF LONDON (10 S. xii. 361). In a quarto MS. volume, beauti- fully written in the year 1609 are contained entries of all the Mayors of London, with their arms, dates of service, and, in many cases, their places of residence and burial, the whole arranged under their several Companies.

Under the heading ' Fishmongers * occurs the entry : " S r John Michell, Maior in An 1425 and 1437. Buried at St. Magnus by London Bridge." Not very early evi- dence, it is true, but in agreement with MB. BEAVEN'S conclusions.

The earliest mention of the name of a Mayor is that relating to " Andrew Bokerell, Grocer, vii tymes Maior, to say from An 1232 till A 1239." Although a copious notice of Sheriffs is given, the name of Michell is not among them.

J. ELIOT HODGKIN.

"MAB n IN MABDYKE (10 S. xii. 310). We may conclude from the information given by the querist that the first syllable of this word stands for " mere," as in the common English place-name Marton. There is a village of this name in Cheshire, six miles south-west of Macclesfield, so called from the mere which once existed there ; and Marton, a suburb of Blackpool, no doubt, like its greater neighbour, owed its name to the marshy character of the locality.

C. E. LOMAX. Louth, co. Lincoln.

The meaning of Mardyke has also been a puzzle to the antiquaries of Liverpool. There was a Mardyke House there at the end of a sea wall or bank protecting the land at the bottom of Chapel Street from the inroads of the river. The house seems to have been used as a salt store about 1660, and earlier as a fort.

A suggestion has been made that the bank or dyke, being from time immemorial in the possession of the Moore family,

acquired the name of Moor-dyke, and hence Mardyke. Another view is that the name simply means sea-dyke ; but neither seems satisfactory. R. S. B.

" Mardyke " would appear to be the dyke " through the marsh." Cork was originally built on a low marshy island formed by the two branches of the river Lea, from which circumstance its name is said to be derived, i.e., corcach, in Irish signifying moor or marsh. In 1819 the Mardyke, a fashionable walk, is described as "an English mile in length, planted with trees, from which there is a pleasant view of part of the city, and of the suburb of Sunday's Well."

" Mar " in some combinations, however, serves to remind one that a spot is so named from its situation on the marches of frontier provinces. On the frontiers of the Saxon colony in Picardy, says Dr. Isaac Taylor, we find the rivers Marbecq and Morbecque, a dyke called the Mardick, and the village of Marck (' Words and Places J ).

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL. Wroxton Grange, Folkestone. [MR. A. R. BAYLEY also refers to Canon Taylor's book.]

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT (10 S. x. 405 ; xi. 16, 137, 353). About ten years after the death of this singular woman, that is to say, in December, 1824, and January, 1825, one John Field published about a dozen " communications " from her, which he entered at Stationers'- Hall. He described himself as " Stone Mason," of " Staverton, near Ashburton, Devon." A copy of this farrago is in the Brit. Mus., P.P., 1881, c. 5, near the end of the volume.

One of Joanna's certificates is preserved in the Guildhall Museum.

RICHABD H. THOBNTON. 36, Upper Bedford Place, W.C.

SELBY, YOBKS : ITS " PECULIAB " COUBT AND PABISH REGISTEBS (10 S. xii. 409). COL. FISHWICK has rather puzzled me, because Dr. Marshall in his ' A.ncient Courts of Probate * gives the earliest date of records as 1555, and the present place of deposit as York.

I can say nothing about the transcripts of the parish registers, but, according to the return made to Parliament in 1832, the registers were at Selby, and consisted of Nos. I.-VIL, Bap., Bur., Marr., 1590-1747 ; No. VIII., Bap., Bur., 1749-77 ; Marr., 1749-53 ; Nos. IX.-XIL, Bap., Bur., 1786- 1812 ; Nos. XIII., XIV., Marr., 1754-1812. S. S. M 'Do WALL.