Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/476

 392

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. n. NOV. 12, 1904.

bottle cork is placed upright on the floor, with the stakes of the players piled on the top, and every player tries, from a distance determined beforehand, to upset cork and money, with a big sou, or a five-franc coin, or a small metal disc called palet.

B. H. G. Paris.

This game ought to be nothing else than the French jeude bouchon, in which the stakes are usually put on the top of an upright bottle cork. It is a very common game amongst French people ; but it is difficult to understand how the English fruiterer "dropped a good deal of money" at it, unless he put sovereigns on the cork instead of sous, or even less, as the players ordinarily do. . KOULLIER.

Milan.

This must be the French game of bouchon, a kind of miniature game of quoits, similar to the game of palet. It is also called bombicke, galoche, and riquelette. The manner of playing it is to be found in most French dictionaries of games. The fullest descrip- tion ^is the one given in the ' Grande Ency- clopedic Generate des Jeux,' by Benjamin Kfteao. F. JESSEL.

Littre, sub nomine l Bouchon,' has : " 2 jeu dans lequel on met des pieces de monnaie sur un bouchon qu'il s'agit d'abattre avec un palet." JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

For an interesting account of the game of corks, and two illustrations, I refer MR. STRACHAN to pp. 28-9 of Ward, Lock & Co.'s ' Scientific Recreations,' 1885.

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

Baltimore House, Bradford.

Thanks to the Editor's explanation of " trousered " (ante, p. 327), I am now able to answer my own query. "Corks" must evidently be the jeu de bouchon, which I find explained in a French - German dictionary as a game played with a sou laid on a cork, the object being to knock the coin off. I presume it is played on a billiard table.

L. E. M. STRACHAN.

Heidelberg, Germany.

HOLBORN (10 th S. ii. 308). On p. 116 of 'London Street Names,' Mr. F. H. Habben, B.A., writes :

" H - lb a rn was ori g ina lly the continuation of Watling Street after its exit from the City through the West (afterwards the New) Gate. The name of Holboru was subsequently imposed by reason of its eing the highway from Holborn Bridge, which, just outside the New Gate, spanned the Hole Bourne in that part of its course where it was about to change its name to the River Fleet."

As to the derivation of Hole Bourne, Mr Habben appears to be of the same opinion as Isaac Taylor, quoted by MR. UNDERDOWN, viz., that it is "the bourne in the hollow."

With regard to the query as to whether it was not called "Old borne Hill" because criminals were borne up the hill on their way to Tyburn, the following extract from 'London, Past and Present,' by Henry B. Wheatley, F.S.A., vol. ii. (1891), pp. 219-22, may throw some light on the subject :

" That Holborn was so called of the Old Bourne or brook, which ran down the Hill or (Street, has been accepted almost without question till within the last few years, but, after investigation, must be given up. Old is a most unlikely term to apply to a brook, and if it had been so named the A.-S. spelling would have been Aid. Yet as early as the Domesday Survey we find what appears to have been a hamlet or small village here named Hole- burne : hole a hollow, a valley

" This was the old road from Newgate and the Tower to the gallows at Tyburn :

Knockem. What! my little lean Ursula ! my she- bear ! art thou alive yet with my litter of pigs to- grunt out another Bartholomew Fair? ha !

Ursula. Yes, and to amble a foot, when the Fair is done, to hear you groan out of a cart up the Heavy Hill.

Knockem. Of Holborn, Ursula, mean'st thou so ? Ben Jonson's 'Bartholomew Fair.'

Aldo. Daughter Pad ; you are welcome. What, you have performed the last Christian office to your keeper ; I saw you follow him up the Heavy Hill to Tyburn. Dryden's 'Limberham,' 4to, 1678.

Sir Sampson. Sirrah, you '11 be hanged ; I shall live to see you go up the Holborn Hill. Congreve's ' Love for Love,' 4to, 1695.

Polly. Now I'm a wretch, indeed. Methinks I see him already in the Cart sweeter and more lovely than the nosegay in his hand ! I hear the crowd extolling his resolution and intrepidity ! What vollies of sighs are sent from the windows of Hol- born that so comely a youth should be brought to- disgrace ! I see him at the tree. Gay, ' The Beg- gar's Opera,' 8vo, 1728.

As clever Tom Clinch, while the rabble was bawling, Rode stately through Holborn to die in his calling, He stopped at the George for a bottle of sack, And promised to pay for it when he came back. His waistcoat and stockings and breeches were

white ;

His cap had a new cherry-ribbon to tie 't. The Maids to the doors and the balconies ran, And said, ' Lack-a-day he 's a proper young man ! '

Swift, ' Clever Toni Clinch going to be Hanged,' 1727."

Is there any authority for the idea that the fact of criminals being driven up the Hill originated the name Old borne Hill or Hilborn? G. L. HALES.

There seems to be something in the word

hoi " which has not yet been accounted for.

It is intimately connected with water-words,

where the idea of hollowness is not specially

characteristic. Thus we have Holbeach,