Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/479

. ii. NOV. 12. ISM.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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duced from Turkey into this Country, The Salutary Act of inoculating the Small pox.

"Convinced of its efficiency, She first tried it with success on her own Children, and then recom- mended the practice of it to her fellow citizens.

" Thus, by her example and advice, We have softened the virulence and escaped the dangers of this most malignant Disease.

" To perpetuate the memory of such benevolence, And to express her gratitude for the benefit she has herself received from this alleviating Act, this monument is erected by Henrietta Inge, Relict of Theodore William Inge, Esq., and daughter of Sir John Wrottesley, Bar 1, In the year of Our Lord, MDCCLXXXIX."

HENRY SMYTH.

Edgbaston.

ONE-ARMED CRUCIFIX (10 th S. ii. 189, 294). If this term may be taken to mean a T cross, without the upper perpendicular limb or bar which we see in the usual Latin cross, it may be worth while mentioning that in the row of stone crosses in the lanes leading to the mediaeval churches of San Pedro de Tabira or Tavira, and at Mafiaria (five kilometres further up the valley leading from Durango in Biscay a to Vitoria, the capital of the province of Alava=Araba in Baskish, i.e. the plain), the two crosses of the thieves, placed on either side of the highest cross, which represents the crucified Christ {though it does not bear His figure, but merely the emblems of the Passion and the initials I.N.R.I. on the upper perpendicular arm, limb, or bar), are alone ip the form of a, T. Taking the titled limb, above the transverse or horizontal beam, as one of two arms, and the lower column as a mere pedestal or trunk, such a cross might be called " one-armed." The "stations of the cross " appear to be of the seventeenth century. E. S. DODGSON.

In Mrs. Jameson's 'History of our Lord' <vol. ii. p. 168) occurs an illustration of a painting of 'The Bad Thief,' by Antonello Messina, now in the Ertborn Collection, Antwerp, which suggests much the same treatment as MR. HIBGAME remembers at Ghent. The arms are, however, tied (not nailed) to the tree trunk.

In Justus Lipsius's 'De Cruce' (1599) an unfortunate victim is shown nailed, hands and feet, to the trunk of a tree (p. 19), and yet another one figures in a similar position, with the addition of a large fire of wood blazing just beneath his feet. Besides the several forms of crucifixion familiar, by illus- trations, to us all, this volume contains pictures of crucified people fastened amongst the boughs of trees, and others upon Y- shaped crosses. There are unfortunates sus-

pended upon crosses having long parallel pendants attached to and hanging from the extremities of the cross-piece, on to the lower ends of which the legs are stretched out, and the feet nailed.

In TRIVMPHVS. IESV. CHRISTI. CRVCIFIXI "

(1608) amongst the many methods are repre- sented additional long cross-pieces situated at the base of the upright, upon which the extended feet are transfixed. Some are drawn as flayed alive prior to (and during) crucifixion ; others, besides being tortured by the ordinary three supporting nails, have several driven through their kneecaps, thighs, shoulders, and elbow joints : whilst one poor wretch has apparently suffered amputation of both hands and feet prior to being nailed aloft. A few are disembowelled ; and one engraving (less dreadful than the majority, but perhaps more impious) represents a priest in his vestments nailed in front of the life- sized figure of our Lord upon a large crucifix which stands on the north side of the altar, in what is apparently his own church.

HARRY HEMS. Fair Park, Exeter.

KISSING GATES (10 th S. ii. 328). A kissing gate is a construction set across a footpath which hits against two posts ; it hinders cattle from straying, but is easily passed through by men and women. It is some- times called a clap-gate. The name and the thing are common in Lincolnshire and many other counties ; see 'E.D.D.'

EDWARD PEACOCK.

I do not think the editorial note gives the original reason for " kissing gates " being so called, although that reason may have held good later. Perhaps the more accurate defi- nition is that in the 'E.D.D.,' namelv, "a gate which swings on both sides of the latch-post until it reaches equilibrium, and the latch drops into the catch," i.e., a swing- gate. The kissing is on the part of the latch, not the pedestrians.

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

Well known all over the country ; see 4 E.D.D.' Often called "clap-gates."

J. T. F. Durham.

I think the term is in pretty general use. I have met with it in at least three counties Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, and Essex. A few years ago I remember walking near Rochford, in Essex, and asking my way of a little schoolgirl. In giving me very clear directions she stated that my route lay through a certain "kissing gate." The ob-