Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/85

. IV. JULY 22,1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 65 No nightly trance or breath-ed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. It will now be readily understood that the natural distinction between such sbs. and their related verbs has been preserved from former times for the sake of keeping them apart. And it follows that, wherever such distinction exists, it is always the sb. that has the voiceless consonant, and never the verb. Other examples are : advice, advise ; device, devise ; bath, bathe ; sheath, sheathe ; wreath, wreathe; loath, loathe; sooth, soothe; troth, betroth (pron. betrothe); mouth, mouthe. So, also, loss, lose; house, house (pron. how) ; abuse, excuse ; refuse, refuse ; mouse, mouse (to catch mice) ; thief, thieve ; belief, believe ; wife, wive ; safe, save ; relief, relieve; calf, calve ; half, halve; strife, strive; grief, grieve; proof, prove. And compare chief with achieve. For a like reason we have loaves as the plural of loaf, from the A.-S. Ida-fat, pi. of A/a/. An interesting example is the adj. leavy, derived from leaf. Shakespeare knew that leavy formed a perfect rime with heavy ; both words were then pronounced with the m as in (treat. But Pope altered the reading leauy (1623) to leafy, as Mr. Aldis Wright duly notes ; see ' Much Ado,' II. iii. 75. That is what comes of meddling. WALTER W. SKEAT. LOOPING THE LOOP: FLYING OR CENTRI- FUGAL RAILWAY : WHIRL OF DEATH. NOT very long ago a performance called "Looping the Loop" was to be seen in Lon- don ("! date and place). A man on a cycle went down a steep track, up and down a circle, and finished on a steep incline. At the top of the circle the man and the cycle were, of course, upside down. On 15 April in Paris, at the Casino de Paris, Mile. Marcelle Kandall died after going through a performance called "The Whirl of Death." She had repeated the performance successfully during several weeks. She used to start in a small 9 h.-p. motor car, in which she was strapped, from the top of a track inclined nearly at 45 de- grees. The track just before reaching the stage turned slightly upwards, then stopped short. When the car reached the bottom of the track a powerful spring was let loose, projecting the vehicle upwards and forwards in such a way that the car, with the girl strapped in it, turned a complete somersault in the air, then fell down on a padded track farther along the stage, by which it ran to the level. Mile. Randall's death was duo to chronic heart disease, directly hastened by the violent shocks undergone in her per- formances (see Daily Telegraph and Daily News of 17 April). The somersault appears to have been substituted for the circular track. " Looping the Loop" was no new thing when it was recently exhibited in London. I have an advertisement of "The Flying Railway now exhibiting at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. The Railway consists of two Inclined Planes, and a Circle of between 40 or [sic] 50 feet in circumference, rising 14 feet perpendicular from the floor, making the whole Line 150 feet in length. The Carriage descends the Line, passes the Circle, and ascends the other in- clined Plane, travelling at the rate of 100 Miles per Hour. Large Iron Weights, and Buckets of Water, glide majestically down the Plane, pass the Circle, and although completely turned upside down, land without a drop being spilt. A Lady or Gentleman will be continually in attendance, and will descend the Line, make the Grand Tour of the Splendid Circle Head Downmost, Which is the most Fearful, Daring, and Astonishing Feat ever accomplished," 4c. At the top of the advertisement is a picture of the railway, with one carriage at the top of the circle upside down, and another just finishing the journey. The date written by some one at the foot is 1850. A centrifugal railway must have been shown before this, as one is referred to in ' The Comic Album: a Book for Every Table,' London, Wm. S. Orr & Co., Amen Corner, Paternoster Row, 1843, sixth page of Sec- tion T (the book is not paged). The article begins as follows :— " The Centrifugal Railway Is a practical illustra- tion of man's ingenuity to turn things upside down, and while he laughs at its wonderful effects, he is constrained to acknowledge the centre of—gravity I A person making a revolution is like a man on the brink of bankruptcy, who rushes down the inclined plane at the rate of one hundred miles an hour." It ends as follows :— " Verily, there are more centrifugal railways in. the moral than in the material world." The name of the author is not given. Some of the articles in the ' Album' are by Laman Blanchard, Alfred Crowquill, Gilbert A. A'Beckett, and the author of ' The Comic Latin Grammar.' According to the advertisement referred to above, another of " The Greatest Wonders of the Age " (heading) was " The Patent Signal Telegraph: or, Writing Machine. By this Apparatus a letter may be written in London and copied in Liverpool and all intermediate places at the same instant of time ; thus rendering time and distance no longer obstacles to communication." ROBERT PIERPOINT. [In illustration of "Looping the Loop" at the Aquarium MB. ALECK ABRAHAMS quoted at 9th S.