Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/47

 io">s. in. JAX.H, 1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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mixed the materials with a quantity of bullock's blood so as to make the work more solid and durable. The floor yet remains, and in good order, but is quite white, the lime having destroyed the red colour of the blood. As pointed out by MR. E. PEACOCK, the red colour of Roman mortar or cement is sometimes due to iron stain ; but it is more frequently owing to an entirely different -cause. Some years since, when making a careful examination of the Roman masonry of the Julian Tower at Chester Castle, I noticed that red bonding mortar had been employed ; and on my referring the matter to the late C. Roach Smith, the well-known antiquary, he informed me that it was due to the use of red pounded tile with the lime of the mortar. In connexion with this subject, the following remarks on a portion of the Roman wall laid bare on Tower Hill, London, during some excavations in the year 1852, recorded in that author's ' Roman London' (1859), p. 16, will be read with interest :

"The core of the wall is composed of rubble cemented together with concrete, in which lime predominates, as is usual in Roman mortar. Founded tile is also used in the mortar which cements the facing. This gives it that peculiar red hue which led Fitzstephen to imagine the cement of the foundations of the Tower to have been tempered with the blood of beasts (casmento cum sanguine animalium temperato)."

T. N. BRUSHFIELD, M.D. Salterton, Devon.

Many South African native tribes notably the Zulus and others of the Bantu race use bullock's blood to polish the mud floors of their huts, which gradually assume an appear- ance something like black marble. The coat- ing of blood is frequently renewed, and it combines with the soil in producing a hard, firm, and solid flooring. I have also seen bullock's blood used for the same purpose in the farmhouses of Boers up-country.

FRANK SCHLOESSER.

15, Grosvenor Road, S-W.

A good deal is given about this practice in 7 th S. vi. 265, 349; vii. 13, under ' Kirk Grims.' Let me add these further notes :

Adamnan, ' S. Columba,' ed. Fowler, p. 137.

' Seven Champions of Christendom,' under S. George, chap. xvi.

Southey's ' Madoc,' 1853, note on p. 294.

Addy, * Hall of Waltheof,' 1893. chap. ix.

Literature, 30 July, 1898, p. 91.

W. C. B.

I remember in my schooldays an Indian missionary who bought and demolished old idol temples. He found extreme difficulty in breaking down the walls, and ascribed this

to the use of sugar as an ingredient of the- mortar. It would be interesting to know whether sugar has ever been subjected to expert building tests in this country, and if there are practical possibilities of its regular employment as a constituent of mortar.

FRANCIS P. MARCHANT. Streatham Common.

THREE TAILORS OF TOOLEY STREET (10 th S. ii. 468). A propos of the three tailors of Tooley Street beginning their address, "We, the people of England," a district councillor of New Maiden, in April, 1902, having just been elected, announced, by way of thanking the electorate, that they had " raised him from obscurity to a niche in history."

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

HIGH PEAK WORDS (10 th S. ii. 201, 282, 384, 472). It will be interesting to MR. ELWORTHY and your readers to know that vrin'rau* is a very common word in Dumfriesshire, and is used to describe peats set up to dry in open form, so that the wind can pass freely through. It is also applied to hay raked into loose rows to dry. GEO. IRVING.

BEN JONSON AND BACON (10 th S. ii. 469). There is no intimation whatever in my copy of 'Ben Jonson,'by John Addington Symonds (Longmans, Green fe Co., 1888). of Rare Ben having been in the service of Bacon.

KENRY GERALD HOPE.

119, Elms Road, Clapham, S.W.

BATTLEFIELD SAYINGS (10 th S. i. 268, 375, 437 ; ii. 275). An English book called ' La Compagnie Irlandaise,' by Capt. Kirwan, was published shortly after the Franco- Prussian War, and I read it when it first appeared. It was an interesting account of the adventures of the Irish Company of the Foreign Legion in the service of France. When the company were advancing under fire at the siege of Montbelliard, a very tall Irishman was observed to duck his head every time a shell flew over the ranks. " Pas de gyinnastique !" cried a sergeant; "hold up your head, man." ' ; Faith, I will, as soon as there 's room enough," said the soldier. _

A man who had been through a campaign told me, some years ago, that a young soldier, who for the first time found himself in the firing-line, called out to his captain, when the enemy's missiles began to whizz past, "Please, sir, they're firing real bullets ! ;} JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS,

MonmouUi.

I have been told of a colonel who, durin-g the Peninsular War, addressed his regiment