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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. n. JULY 9, 1904.

the Deanery first called the Ainsty? Nobody knows. And when did it cease to be called the Deanery of Christianity ? Again, nobody knows.

"My contention is this: that the word Ainsty is a contraction of the word Christianity ; that f 01 a long time ' Ainsty ' was the popular, the colloquia name of the Deanery, and the longer word the one that was used in legal and other formal documents and that at some time or other the long name has been dropped, and the shorter one become the commonly recognized name. When I wrote a shon article a couple of years ago on this matter, ] suggested that 'Christianity' would probably be written Xanity; since then I have come across a confirmation of this conjecture in the parish records of IS. Martin's, Coney Street, the rural dean there signing himself as ' Dean of Xanity.'

" The word Christianity is one easily pronounced, but it is a long one to write, and if you will write it you will see that there was some justification for the Dean and other people abbreviating it in writing ; and I believe that ' Ainsty ' is simply the latter part of the word Christianity, the Greek X being left put. In Lincoln, Leicester, and Exeter, the deaneries of Christianity remain ; in York it [sic. formally [formerly] existed ; when it disappeared no one knows ; but the Ainsty remains, and it seems to me that the ecclesiastical district lying to the west of York is a Deanery with a legally-recognized nickname."

I cannot say that I share Mr. Solloway's belief. It is hardly likely that ecclesiastics who abbreviated the word Christianity when they wrote would do so when they talked, and if they did not, laymen, who are not usually very glib about rural deaneries, were hardly likely to introduce such a form as Ainsty, and to gain for it contented accept- ance on the part of all who spoke or all who penned. Even if the name of the deanery had been lost, and been recovered only in manuscript as " Xanity," I do not think that Ainsty would have resulted.

ST. SWITHIN.

TYBURN. I find that there have been at various times discussions in the columns of ( discussions which seem to have left the ques- tion unsettled. I do not find that any one of your former correspondents thought of referring to maps. It is true that most of the maps published while Tyburn was the iplace of execution fall short of the locality. But Rocque's map of 1746 has a very clear representation of the gallows. It is shown in perspective as a three-sided structure, with the word ' Tiburn" under it. It is in the middle of the space formed by the junction of what are now Oxford Street and Edgware Road. The angle at the north-west corner of the roads is rounded as we see it to-day. Following the curve, behind the gallows, is shown in plan what may be either a shed or stand. Just within Hyde Park, a little to
 * N. & Q.' as to the site of the famous gallows

the east of Tyburn, is marked a place " where soldiers are shot." In a map of 1756, engraved by R. W.^Seale, Tyburn occupies exactly the same position as in Rocque's map.

In Rocque's map Tyburn turnpike is shown at the east corner of Park Lane, then called Tyburn Lane. In later maps the turnpike is shown in a new position, correctly indicated by the iron monument still in situ, bearing on it the words, "Here stood Tyburn Gate, 1829." From Horwood's large map it appears that the house belonging to the new turnpike must have occupied nearly the old site of the gallows. ALFRED MARKS.

DIALECT : " CHUNNERIN'." The enclosed paragraph from the Irish Times of 4 June seems worth noting in the pages of

" It is suggested that a dialect dictionary should be added to the library in connexion with the Liverpool Law Courts. The other day Mr. Justice Jelf, counsel, and jury were confounded by a witness who declared that when he asked a question of a party to the case, that party started ' chunnerin'.' This, it turned out, was the Lancashire word for mumbling otherwise evasion. The necessity for a precise definition of such dialect words occasionally arises, and a dictionary would, it is felt, come in useful."

HERBERT B. CLAYTON.

39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

[Dr. Joseph Wright will, no doubt, be happy to supply, "for a consideration," the ' English Dialect Dictionary ' to all the courts of England.]

"IT'S A VERY GOOD WORLD THAT WE LIVE

IN." (See 1 st S. ii. 71, 102, 156 ; 3 rd S. i. 398 ; v. 114 ; 4 th S. i. 400 ; xii. 8 ; 6 th S. i. 77, 127, 166, 227, 267 ; ii. 19, 79 ; 8 th S. x. 46.) It may interest readers of 1 N. &, Q.' to know that in an auction of old pottery and porcelain at Sotheby's rooms, on 16 May last, forming part of lot 140, was "a Sunderland jug, with ship and verses," of pink lustre- ware pottery 'early nineteenth century), and holding at east two quarts, one of such verses thereon Deing the following epigram (differing some- what from other versions) :

This world is a good one to live in, To lend, to spend, to buy, or give in, But to beg, borrow, or get a mans own, It is such a world as never was known.

I may add that about 1822 the "Little

lermitage " at Gad's Hill, which was referred


 * o in several of the above communications,

nd through which the epigram became well

known, was inhabited by Mr. David Day.

W. I. R. V.

BEE SUPERSTITIONS. The many supersti- tions formerly connected with bees and bee- keeping have been plentifully referred to by