Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/50

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

JULY 9,190*.

STAMP COLLECTING AND ITS LITERATURE (10 th S. i. 322). A reply made to me in th Philatelic Quarterly (1877) may be of interest I must have addressed Messrs. Stafford Smith & Co., of Brighton, the publishers, asking for some information on the subject of the earliest stamp collectors, and the following answer was published :

" Many years since, in 1861, we were informed a Louvain by some of the students at the Collegi there that they were the first collectors. We sat a collection in London in 1854, and heard of ont that had been formed previously to that by a few years."

WILMOT CORFIELB, Hon. Sec.

Philatelic Society of India, Calcutta.

It would be well to put on record, as being the first published of its kind, a book o: some 280 pages, entitled ' The Stamp-Fiends Raid,' by W. E. Imeson, issued by Horace Cox, London, in November last. The book, a humorous skit in verse, marks a new departure in the literature of philately anc kindred subjects. G. C. W.

MAJOR-GENERAL EYRES (10 th S. i. 489). George Bolton (not Boulton) Eyres appears on pp. 96-7 of Dodwell and Miles's ' Alpha- betical List of Officers of the Indian Army from 1760 to 1834 ' (London, 1838). He was a "Cadet in 1761; Ensign, 24 July, 1763; Lieutenant, 1 Sept., 1763 ; Captain, 4 Aug., 1765 ; Major, 10 Dec., 1771 ; Lieut.-Colonel, 1 Oct., 1781 ; Colonel, 30 May, 1786 ; Major- General, 20 Dec., 1793. Retired on the pay of his rank 1796. Died Jan., 1797." He was an officer on the Bengal establishment. Per- haps his tombstone at Bath, if traceable, would give information as to his birth and parentage ; or the India Office might be con- sulted in the Record Department, of which Mr. Foster is the head. J. J. COTTON.

8, Gordon Place, Campden Hill, W.

STEP-BROTHER (10 th S. i. 329, 395, 475). As there appears to be much misconception as to relationships by affinity, I venture to quote from Stephen's * Commentaries on the Laws of England,' book iii. p. 260. It is there laid down that the consanguinei (or relations by blood) of the wife are always related by affinity to the husband, and the consanguinei of the husband to the wife; but, on the other hand, the consanguinei of the husband are not at all necessarily related to the con- sanguinei of the wife, nor is the husband related to the affines (or relations by marriage) of the wife, nor vice versd. Hence the widow and widower of a deceased brother and sister respectively are not related by affinity, and as they can lawfully intermarry,

it would be highlyVnconvenient, as well as incorrect, to style iem brother-in-law and sister-in-law. It wirSy be noticed that they stand to one another exactly in the same position as the late Cardinal Manning stood to the late Bishop Wilberforce of Winchester, and, with due deference to CHESTER HERALD-, it must follow that those prelates were not brothers by affinity, or, as it is popularly called, brothers-in-law, by reason of their marrying two sisters.

Similarly the children of a wife by a former husband are not related by affinity to the children of her second husband by a former wife, and as the one family may lawfully intermarry with the other family, they should not even be styled step-brothers and step-sisters, as, if that term means anything, it would seem to imply an impedi- ment to marriage. ARTHUR F. ROWE.

Leatherhead.

GUNCASTER (10 th S. i. 448, 518). The pro- posal to identify Guncaster with Godman- chester seems quite reasonable, but we have not yet been informed how such forms as Gumicastra arose.

In my paper on 'The Place-names of Huntingdonshire,' printed for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, I have shown that God- manchester derived its name from a certain Guthmund. This explains all such forms as Gumicastra, Gumicestre, and Guncaster easily enough.

There is a slight difficulty in the form Godmanchester itself. This is due to the shifty nature of the clumsy symbol known as the Anglo-French short o. It was used for two distinct purposes, viz., to render the A.-S. short o (as in dog) and the A.-S. short u (as in hunig, now honey). In Godman- chester it originally meant the latter i.e., it was meant for Gudmanchester, which can thus be readily understood. Compare the pronunciations of colour and love. The w in Guth- was originally long, but was shortened in Guthmund before thm.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.

Verses, Translations, and Fly leaves. By C. S.

Calverley. (Bell & Sons.)

ViTH considerable knowledge of both literature

tnd journalism, we are by no means inclined to

ndorse a recent obiter dictum that the terms are

nything like interchangeable. Journalism has

>een called the eleventh muse ; but though, no

~oubt, wealthier than her fair colleagues, she has

much to learn from them in the details of dress