Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/573

 IO*B. iv. DEC. 9.1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 475 unless we include a short but suggestive analysis of ' British Men of the Time.1 by Sir (then Dr.) Conan Doyle, in the Nineteenth Century of August, 1888. As bearing on the point of ST. SWITHIN s note, I quote from Mr. Ellis's work :— " We may probably believe that the counties that have contributed moat largely to the making of English men .of genius are Norfolk, .Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Dorset- shire, Oxfordshire, and Shropshire. To these we must certainly add Kent, since its total output more than compensates for its intellectual decadence during recent centuries."—Pp. 39, 40. This is but one specimen of the interesting facts dealt with by Mr. Ellis in the first two or three chapters of his book. ' A Study of British Genius' deals with a group of men of genius, properly speaking, but a statistical record of less talented indi- viduals, embracing as many of the 30,000 odd of the 'D.N.B.' as are duly mentioned by birthplace, would show most interesting results, though it is impossible to say how far these would tally with the results derived from a smaller selection of names. In the volumes of The Gentleman's Mar/azine commencing in 181C and ending in 1826 will be found a series of articles under the title 'Compendium of County History.' They consist of notes on the history, biography, <fec., of each county, and were written with the idea of forming a statistical groundwork to a proposed history of the English counties. Under each county will be found the total population (from the census of 1811); this again is divided into three items, viz. (1) ' those engaged in agriculture; (2) trade; (3) other occupations (not stated), and non- productive. Following the statistics of popu- lation will be found full lists of eminent natives of the county, giving dates of birth and death, and occupation. It would be quite possible to get a fair idea of each county's output of talent, and its relation to the population, from a study of these lists, but, as regards "genius by counties," the results would not, of course, be comparable in interest and completeness to a similar de- duction from the sixty-six volumes of the 4 D.N.B.1 F. S. SNELL. Worcester, Cape Colony. ATLAS AND PLEIONE : THE PLEIADES : THE DAISY (10th S. iv. 387).—Canon H. N. Ella- combe's paper on "The Daisy,' read before the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, 14 January, 1874, appears as the first appendix to the second edition of his 'Plant-Lore and Garden-Craft of Shake- speare' (W. Satchell & Co. and Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1884). In a prefatory note he states that the paper was published m The Garden, and a few copies reprinted tor private circulation. Mention is made of three legends connected with the flower— those named in the penultimate paragraph of the query—but the author was apparently unacquainted with the one associated with the daughter of Atlas and Pleione, and 1 am in the same state of ignorance. JOHN COLES, Jun. Frome. Canon Ellacombe's paper ' The Daisy "was reprinted as an appendix to 'The Plant-Lore and Garden-Craft of Shakespeare' (1878), a book that is occasionally offered in the lists of second-hand dealers. It was prm*®? for the author by William Pollard, of North Street, Exeter ; and if Canon Ellacombe has no longer copies to dispose of, I dare say Mr. Commin, bookseller, Exeter, could help your correspondent to find one. I am sorry to hear that the British Museum lacks this useful work. ST. SWITHIN. "SKERKICK " (10th S. iv. 408).—Halliwell, in his 'Archaic Dictionary,' enters this word(in the form " scirrock," and his definition is a scrap ; a fragment; anything of very small value. North." THOMAS BAYNE. SUICIDES BURIED IN THE OPEN FIELDS (10th S iv 346, 397).—I quote the following from 'The States-General' of Erckmann- Chatrian, ch. xii. The passage relates to Calvinists :— " ' God's creatures !' exclaimed he, extending his long arms. ' If they were God's creatures, would the cur4s refuse to register their births, marriages, and deaths? Would they be buried in the faelds, far from consecrated ground, like beasts . The reason generally accepted for burying suicides at cross-roads is that their lives in the grave may be rendered as intolerable as possible by the rumbling of the traffic above. There is little room to doubt the informa- tion given by MM. Erckmann-Chatrian, who possessed such a detailed knowledge of the condition and customs of Alsace-Lorraine before 1789. We may take it, therefore, that suicides were sometimes buried in the open fields. The wording is too bold to admit or any other interpretation. H. T. SMITH. FIRST RAILWAY ON THE CONTINENT (10* S iv 267).—Try 'An Historical, Statistical, and 'Scientific Account of the Railways of Belgium from 1834 to 1842,' translated and compiled from official documents by Edward Dobson, 1843. L L- *•