Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/564

 466 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io»s.iv.DM.9.i«& The subject of wooden water-pipes was discussed very fully lately in The Essex Naturalist* by Mr. T. V. Holmes and others, and in the course of that discussion I ex- pressed the opinion, based on negative evidence, that wooden pipes were not used in the London district before the time of the New River. A New River main ran under Kingsgate Street until that thorough- fare was obliterated a few years ago by the London County Council; and a few months ago I saw typical New River wooden pipes •dug up at the north end of Kingsgate Street. I suggest that probably those in Theobalds Road are the continuation of the same line, but shall be glad if any reader of ' N. & Q.' can furnish any evidence pro or con. As.to Lamb's Conduit, I do not know its course; but it does not seem very likely that it should have taken an east-and-west line along Theobalds Road. A. MORLEY DAVIES. [See 9th S. iii. 186, 445; iv. 14, 94; x. 421; xi. 73, 112,189.] AFFERY FLINTWINCH IN ' LITTLE DORRIT.'— Inasmuch as Dickens wrote the main part of 4 Little Dorrit' while staying at Folkestone, it is most probable that he got the above Christian name from an old tombstone on the edge of the pathway to the porch of the parish church of that town. The inscription ran (and runs): "To the memory of Affery Jeffery (a female)." H. P. L. •"COURT OF RECEPTION."—The use of the term " Court of Reception" in the official Court Circular, dated 17 October, deserves note. The passage is as follows :— " His Majesty the King held a Court of Recep- tion at Buckingham Palace this morning, at which HJa Majesty received the President, vice-Presi- dents, Past Presidents, and Members of the Municipal Council of Paris, together with the Chairman, Vice and Deputy Chairmen, Past Chair- men, and Members of the London County Council." ALFRED F. ROBBINS. " HAAKON VII."—In the year 1380, more than five hundred years ago, the King of Norway, Haakon VI., slept with his fore- fathers. On 18 November Prince Charles of Denmark was elected King of Norway, and will assume the royal title of Haakon VII. No title could have been selected which will appeal so strongly to the imagination of •every son of Norway. The name of Haakon is associated with the memories of a glorious past. It has been the favourite name of the (October, 1903), 229-40 (April, 1904), 272-4 (July, old Kings of Norway. There has been shed upon it the glamour of poetry and romance, for the name of Haakon has been borne by many a heroic warlike ".Tarl." The name has the very noblest meaning;, implying that the man who bears it is of high, nay, even of heavenly descent, like the name " Diogenes " of the Greeks. The Old Norse H&kon means " a man of high and noble birth," from hdr, high, and Jconr (re- lated to our kin), " one nobly born ": compare our " king." A. L. MAYHEW. " POLTROON." — Fanciful derivations die hard, and I am surprised to see that of " pol- troon " frompollice truncus, i.e., the practice of some Romans in the days of the later empire to mutilate their thumbs in order to escape military service (which, by the by, 1 heard recently referred to as the true one in a sermon), given the first place in Worcester's ' Dictionary.' It is properly not mentioned in Webster or the ' Century Dictionary.' The ' Encyclopaedic' also ignores it. Prof. Skeat calls it an astounding derivation, and ranks it with those which do not rest on any evi- dence. It may be of interest to quote what Littre says on the point : — " Mais le mot franc.ais. qui ne commence i etre usite que dans le XVI0 siecle, est d'origine italienne; et 1'italien poltrone ne peut, d'apres It forme, venir depollex trunctw." The word is really derived from a provincial Italian word (polter) for bed, the original source of which is the Old High German polstor, modern polsttr, connected with which also is our word "bolster." A poltroon, in fact, originally meant one who preferred his bed to exertion, almost equivalent to a slug- gard. W. T. LYXX. Blackheath. BERLIN.—A further attempt at explaining historically the original meaning of the name of Berlin, which has escaped the notice of the revised edition of Isaac Taylor's * Handbook of Local Names ' (1898), may perhaps deserve to be recorded. The older name by which Berlin was at first known (for instance, in the ' Chronicle of Magdeburg,' A.D. 1411) is not merely Berlin, but "der Berlin," "to dem Berlin" ("zu dem Berlin"). Several other smaller places were, or are still, called by the same name; for instance, "der Berlin" at Frankfurt an der Oder, "der Berlin." a place on the Elbe opposite Magdeburg, "der grosse urid kleine Berlin" at Halle an der Saale, "der Berlin" at Augsburg on the river Lech, &c. All these places situated on rivers have their appellation "der Berlin"
 * Vol. xiii. pp. 60-75 (July, 1903), 117-20 and 135-6