Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/57

 s. v. JA*. 20, IMC.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

41

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUAEY tO, 1006.

CONTENTS. No. 108.

NOTES :-" Combine": "Gambo,"41 First Book Auctions in England London Improvement, 43 Stevenson and Scott: "Hebdomadary," 44-New Year Luck Bacteria : Early Notice Elsdou ' Charlie, He's my Darling, 45 "B.N.C.," 46.

QUERIES : Pidgin or Pigeon English King Edgar and the Peg-cups -"Metropolitan toe" General La Poype, 46" Ocean, 'mid his uproar wild "Messenger Family 'James" University Tower of London Reginald Fitz Urse The Condado Durham Graduates Sir George Yonge, 47 Authors of Quotations Wanted Sir R. Peel's Franked and Stamped Letters Portman Family Sir Gerald (or Garrett) Fleetwood Devonshire Funeral Customs Mother Christmas, 43 Collingwood's De- scendants, 49.

REPLIES -.-Fame, 49 -Catalogues of MSS. Campbells in the Strand, 51 SUines Bridge -Semper Family -Ducie- more-"Drinkings": " Drinking Time "Antonio Canova in England, 52 Roll of Carlaverock Twizzie-twigs, 53 Tete-a-Tete Portraits in "Ihe Town and Country Maga- zine ' Scallions-Wakerley - CricUet - Hertlds' Visita- tions Northamptonshire The .Pound, Rochester Row, 51 London Parochial History Open-air Pulpits, 55- Nelson's Signal Garioch : its Pronunciation Church Spoons Paul Whitehead, 5J Colet on Peace and War- Mr Moxhay, Leicester Square Showman 'The Ring Hair-Powdering Closets -Bowes of Elford-Trafalgar, 57.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' A New English Dictionary on His- torical Principles ' ' Archteology and False Principles 'The Essays of Michel de Montaigne ' ' The Seven Deadly Sinnes of London' 'County of Suffolk' 'A Supplement to the Glossary of the Dialect of Cumber- land ' A Dictionary of Indian Biography.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

Notices to Correspondents.

"COMBINE" "GAMBO/ 3 THE former word, which has developed such startling connotations in our time, is derived by the 'N.E.D.' either directly from late Latin combinare (con + bini), or indirectly from the same source through the French combiner. The English word has been traced back to the fourteenth century, and the French to the thirteenth. The Latin form is found in St. Augustine and Sidonius (a native of Gaul), and in glossaries. As there are, I believe, no analogous formations in Latin, I venture to suggest a Celtic origin for this very interesting word.

That origin may be found in combennones (" those who sat in the same henna were called combennones, Fest., p. 27; cf. Comment., p. 347. A wagon of wicker or basket work is still called banne in Belgium, and benne in Switzerland," Lewis and Short's 'Lat. Diet.'). Men and ben are the Welsh forms ; but there is a third form in Welsh, more to the point, to which I shall return presently.

It is well known that the Latin term covinus or covinnus is derived from a Celtic word which still survives in common use in Welsh in the verbal form cywain. In the everyday life of j Welsh hill-side farm there is

no more important moment in the small boy's existence than when he is first allowed cyivain yivair ("to carry the hay''), through the narrow lanes from meadow to rick-yard, in a car llusg (" drag-cart").

In The Spectator of 5 Sept., 1903 (p. 342) Sir William Laird Clowes gave some interest- ing extracts from the MS. letters written by James Cobb, secretary to the East India Company, during two long driving tours in 1815-16. "In Wales," says Sir William,

"Cobb noticed what he took to be an ingenious device for evading the tax on wheeled vehicles. It consisted of a framework like the shafts of a one- horse chaise joined together by two or three traverse-boards. The rear ends of the shafts were shod and rounded, and rested upon the ground. The driver sat immediately behind his horse upon the traverse-board, whence, if he liked, he could step forward and mount without first descending to the ground."

I need not enlarge on this as a capital instance of the proneness of Englishmen to misjudge the Welsh character. Clowes evi- dently believed in this tax-evading trick. Had he looked up 'Cart' in 'The Penny Cyclopaedia,' he would have found that

"the drag-cart without wheels, which is used in some mountainous districts, is one of the simplest contrivances for transporting heavy weights. It consists of two strong poles, from twelve to fifteen feet long, connected by cross-pieces fixed at right- angles to them, by morticing or pinning, so that the poles may be two or three feet apart. About eighteen inches of the poles project beyond the lowest cross-piece, the ends resting on the ground. The other ends of the poles form the shafts for the horse to draw by. The load is placed on the cross- pieces, over which boards are sometimes nailed, for the purpose of carrying stones, or such things as might fall through between the cross-bars. The horse bears one end of the drag-cart by means of a common cart-collar or a breast-strap. This vehicle is extremely useful in steep and rough descents, especially to draw stones from quarries, and can be made of rough poles at little or no expense. Pieces of hard wood fitted under the ends of the poles, and renewed as they wear out, will prevent the ends of the drag-cart from wearing away, and will allow it to slide along more easily."

That, with the addition of upright poles with their several cross-poles fitted into the shafts at right angles to the fore and rear cross- pieces, is an exact description of a car llusg (" drag-cart") as familiarly known to me in my boyhood fifty years ago in Wales. The most noticeable part of it was the shafting, formed of entire young trees, like the Roman valii. These poles, too, are the most promi- nent part of the old Irish car, which is fully described in the same article in 'The Penny Cyclopaedia, 3 where the interesting statement is made that '* the wheels of the carriages on railroads are constructed on the principle of