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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL FEB. 2, 1907.

all events, in that year, still a private office of the magistrate. Grant says that in 1792

" seven police offices were established by Act of Parliament in different parts of the metropolis. To each of these offices three magistrates were appointed, at a salary, respectively, of 400/. per annum."

So that it was, no doubt, in 1792 that the seats of the London magistracy first became known as public police offices.

The Birmingham " public office " for the county magistrates was, according to James A. Sharp's ' Gazetteer,' not established until 1806. See also Black's ' Guide to Warwick- shire,' 1879, pp. 21-2.

So late as 1857, J. Ewing Ritchie, in his ' Night Side of London,' still speaks of the Thames police office (p. 11) ; but in the same little work there is a chapter headed ' The Police Court ' (p. 200), and on p. 206 it is said of a prosecutor, " As Phil. Bird is in

COUrt," &C. J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

Deene, Tooting Bee Road, Streatham, S.W.

The following is to be found in Stark's ' Picture of Edinburgh,' third ed., 1823, p. 152 :

"The old system of police having been found insufficient, an application was made to Parliament, in 180o, tor a police bill for the city. This bill received the sanction of the Legislature, and was begun to be acted upon, and a police court opened in Edinburgh, on the 15th of July, 1805. By this Statute a Court of Police was established, under the superintendence of a person with the title of Judge of Police.

This quotation may perhaps be of use in reply to the query (10 S. vi. 369) as to when the name " police court " was first intro- duced, and whether it was by statute.

W. S.

BRASSES AT THE BODLEIAN (10 S. vii. 42) The records of the Library and the memories of its staff afford no evidence that the rose and the mutilated inscription ever were m the Bodleian. Mr. Andrews's unnamed authority (of 1897) is only quoted as saying that he was able to find the rose on inquiry at Oxford in 1864. Haines is >rtainly explicit yet things have been stated in print to be at the Bodleian which were all the time in other collections. If we ever had these two brasses, they were apparently either stolen or else lent for >bmg to some antiquary who failed to return them. In either case the loss would antedate the twenty-four years or so for h my own memory serves and my own esponsibility holds good. They are cer- tainly not hidden, or out of place, anywhere

in our premises, and I investigated the matter thoroughly many years ago.

E. W. B. NICHOLSON. Bodleian Library, Oxford.

BIDDING PRAYER (10 S. vi. 448 ; vii. 32, 70). " Ye shall pray for " is the form which I used, and have heard used by others.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PREACHER.

An interesting book on this subject is ' Forms of Bidding Prayer,' Oxford, John Henry Parker, 1840. The editor, H. O. A C. (Coxe ?), says, in the preface :

"Much care has been taken to consult such works as were considered likely to illustrate either the early or later history of the forms in question ; such as, on the one hand, are Bingham, Sparrow, Le Strange, Hilliard, &c. ; on the other, Card. Bona, Durand, Martene, Ferrerino, Ussher, with other liturgical writers of authority."

J. DE BERNIERE SMITH.

" THE OLD HIGHLANDER " (10 S. vii. 47). The following is from The Daily Graphic of 19 January :

" TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD'S OLDEST INHABITANT. The celebrated statue of the Highlander, which for over a hundred years has mounted guard over a tobacconist's shop in Tottenham Court Road, is not, after all, to leave the thoroughfare which he has helped to make famous. Wide publicity was recently given to the fact that the shop beside which the figure stood was to be demolished and that the Highlander was therefore for sale. So many offers were made to the owner of the statue that bidding ran into quite extraordinary figures. The old Scot's future is, however, quite decided now, as he has been secured by Messrs. Catesby and Sons, and will henceforth be seen at their ' Linoland ' in Totten- ham Court Road, not many yards from his old home."

A picture of ' The Old Highlander ' accom- panies the letterpress. It is a pity that the figure should be taken to a shop which deals in furniture and linoleum, not tobacco and snuff. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

In the High Street of Cheltenham, outside the shop of Mr. Wright, tobacconist, there is a wooden figure of a tall Highlander, in full costume. I do not know how long it has been there, but I remember it well more than fifty years ago, when I was a boy at school, and it looks exactly the same now as it did then. C. S. J.

Speaking of the tobacconist's sign of a Highlander, T. O. H. sees the features of a Lowlander in the fact of these effigies being clean shaved ; but with the knowledge that, certainly as late as up to the fifties, all, high or low, shaved, his assumption cannot be correct. For pictorial evidence see portraits of Highlanders in Louis