Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/201

 io s. ii. AUU. 27, 190*.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

161

LONDON, SATURDAY, AL'GUST S7,

CONTENTS. -No. 35.

NOTES :" Tote," 161 Cowper'i Letters, 162 Purcell's Music tor 'The Tempest,' 164 The Thinking Horse, 166 "Bearded like the pard "Whitsunday in the ' Anglo- Saxon Chronicle' Goldsmith and a Scottish Paraphraser Service Tree, 166" Buzzing," 167.

QUERIES : Nicholas Billingsley " Buttery " Goody Two Shoes 'Portuguese Pedigrees First-Floor Refec- tories Marylebone Literary and Philosophical Society "Vine " Tavern, Mile Knd, 17 " Work like a Trojan " St. George Burgomaster Six Moral Standards of Kurope Finchale Priory, Durham Ashburner Family of Olney Richard Price, M.P. Falkner Family Mesmerism in the Dark Ages, 168 Killed by a Look Baron Ward Manzoni's ' Betrothed ' Thackeray's Pictures London Cemeteries in 1860 England's Inhabitants in 1697 "Three Guns," 169.

EEPLIBS : Desecrated Font*, 170 Peak and Pike Talented," 172 Bohemian Villages Lambeth "Ponti- ficate" Riding the Black Ram Admiral Sir Samuel Greig, 173 Antiquary v. Antiquarian Woffington Black Dog Alley, Westminster, 174 -Tea as a Meal Fair Maid of Kent Rev. John Williams Storming of Fort Moro Gray's ' Blegy ' in Latin, 175 Thomas Pigott Longest Telegram Obb Wig, 176 " Our Eleven Days " Edmund Halley, Surgeon R.N. Philip Baker, 177.

HOTES ON BOOKS : -Spencer and Gillen's 'Northern Tribes of Central Australia '' Slingsby and Slingsby Castle ' ' Great Masters.'

Obituaries : Col. Hunter Weston ; Mr. F. A. Inderwick.

Booksellers' Catalogues.

Notices to Correspondent!.

"TOTE."

AT p. 449 of the last volume MR. HACKETT, of Washington, said : " The word ' tote,' meaning ' carry,' was so common at the South that it is said that a boy learning to add would phrase it thus : ' Put down 7 and tote 4.'" At p. 475 PROF. SKEAT remarked that if MR. HACKETT "will be so good as to wait till the last part of the * English Dialect Dic- tionary ' comes out, he will then be able to ^ascertain the facts as to the distribution of " the word tote. Meanwhile, as the word is .generally regarded as of American origin, as its American history is little known, as misapprehension exists in regard to it, and as a possible aid to Prof. Wright, may I be allowed to give some American examples ? It is not certain that the tote in MR. HACKETT'S sentence is the same word as the tote in the extracts which follow ; at all events, the two words are differentiated in the ' Century Dictionary,' and we must wait for the completion of the * E.D.D.' before this point can be settled :

"A complaint against Major Robert Beverly, that when this country [Virginia] had (according to order) raised CO men to be an out-guard for the Governor: who not finding the Governor nor their appointed Commander they were by Beverly com-

manded to goe to work, fall trees and niawl and toat railes." 1677, in Virginia Ma(ja~ine (1894), ii. 168.

"On Monday Evening the Baronet [Sir F.Ber- nard, Governor of Massachusetts] sneaked down to Castle- William [in Boston harbour], where he lay that Night. The next Morning he was toated on board the Rippon, in a Canoe, or Tom-Cod Catcher, or some other small Boat." 1769, 7 August, Boston Gazette, p. 3/2.

" The fourth class of improprieties consist of local phrases or term*. By these 1 mean such vulgarisms as prevail in one part of a country and not iii

another 7. Tot is used for carry, in some of the

southern states." 1781, J. Witherspoon, 'Works' (1802), iv. 469, 470.

'* ' 1 look after the cows, dig in the garden, beat out the flax, curry-comb the riding nag, cart all the wood, tote the wheat to the mill, and bring all the logs to the school-house.'" 1803, J. Davis, ' Travels,' p. 389. The author, who is repeating the words of a negro, adds in a note : " Tote is the American for to carry."

" Tote, r.t., to carry, convey, remove [Virg. &c.]." 1806, N. Webster, 'Compendious Dictionary,' p. 313.

" Tote is marked by Mr. Webster * Virg/ But we believe it a native vulgarism of Massachusetts." 1809, Monthly Anthology, vii. 264.

" We know not the origin of the word [holt], any more than of another fashionable Virginian term, ' toting,' which is used instead of carrying. When a member wishes to ' bolt,' he ' totes'' himself out of the house before the ayes and noes are called." 1814, April 13, New York Herald, p. 3/4.

Away she sail'd so gay and trim,

Down to the Gallipagos, And toted all the terrapins.

And nabb'd the slipp'ry whalers. 1812-15, in J. Frost, ' Book of the Navy ' (1842), p. 309.

" Tote. I believe this word is peculiar to the states where slavery prevails, and it is probably an African word." 1816, N. Webster, 'Letter to J. Pickering '(1817), p. 25.

"In my last, if I remember right, I toted you (as they say in Virginia) up to Richmond, by what may be called a circumbendibus." 1817, J. K. Paulding, ' Letters from the South,' i. 59.

" Tote, a slave word, is much used ; implying both sustentation and locomotion, as a slave a log, or a nurse a baby." 1824, H. C. Knight, ' Letters from South and West,' p. 82.

" Here [Richmond, Va.] too you have the ' paw and maw '(pa and ma) and 'tote,' with a long train of their kind." 1826, Mrs. Anne Royall, 'Sketches,' p. 121.

"I present the following beautiful specimen, rn-lxttim, as it flowed from the lips of an Ohio boatman :

And it's oh ! she was so neat a maid,

That her stockings and her shoes She toted in her lily white hands,

For to keep them from the dews." 1828, J. Hall, ' Letters from the West,' p. 91.

"'Help yourself, stranger,' added the landlord, ' while I tote your plunder into the other room.' " 1835. C. F. Hoffman, ' Winter in the West,' ii. 147.

" Tom was liberal, and supplied us with more than we wanted, and ' toted,' by the assistance of Sambo, his share [of honey 1 to his own home." 1854, T. B. Thorp, 'Hive ot "the Bee-Hunter,"' p, 52.