Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/118

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

I may say that my " enthusiastic laudation " of the Territorial Movement has received extraordinary confirmation within the last few days, in quarters and in a manner that must convince the most apathetic of the soundness of its principles and of the states- manship of the founder. Mr. Zangwill has received from a sympathizer the princely donation of 100,0002., and the great and noble house of Rothschild has handed to him 20,0002. for the purpose of setting on foot one invaluable branch of the great work, viz., emigration on a basis of self- dependence. Emigrants will pay their own passage money to their destinations, but will receive advice and guidance from Ito agents on landing. Hitherto, as I pointed out in my note, everything has been done for the emigrant, except rinding him : under those conditions there was an abundant supply, naturally the least desirable in a new country. Philanthropy was twice cursed : it cursed those who gave and those who received its doles. The age of Schnor- ring is dead. We mean to raise up a genera- tion of self-respecting, law-abiding citizens, making their own laws in their own way, in any land that will give us power under charter. It is time the world settled this miserable Jewish question by giving us what we want, and what, as men and women, we are entitled to, viz., the right of working out the spiritual salvation of our race in any way that seems best in our own eyes. That is our idea of Autonomy. I have been a Territorialist for years.

M. L. R. BRESLAR.

ELLIOTT : PONSONBY, 1661 (10 S. v. 269). Having some information upon this Elliott family, I should be glad to hear from A. C. H. and to send such facts as may be useful. R. E. E. CHAMBERS.

Pill House, Bishop's Tawton, Barnstaple.

BOUNDARIES AND HUMOROUS INCIDENTS : TOMMY-ON-THE-BRIDGE (10 S. vii. 30). On the first day of the year which has just begun there died here a Newcastle " cha- racter," known far and wide, even beyond the confines of this district, as " Tommy-on- the-Bridge." An ingenious plan with which he is credited for checkmating the police might serve to furnish MR. RUDOLPH DE CORDOVA with an illustration of parish- boundary humour, though, quite apart from this, I think his death is worth noting here, as he had become, if I may so phrase it, a recognized Newcastle institution- one of the sights of the city that the curious stranger must see before his stock of infor-

mation on matters Novocastrian could be considered complete. Tommy had, indeed, attained such distinction as obtained for him the dignity of having his portrait printed on a post card and sold for twopence.

For the purpose of soliciting alms, " Tommy-on-the-Bridge " took his stand every day, and in all sorts of weather, for well on towards half a century, near the middle of the Low Bridge, stretching across the Tyne from Newcastle to Gateshead. The old stone bridge, removed in 1867, that preceded the existing structure, had the line of division between the two towns indicated by a long narrow pavement stone running right across the footpath. To many generations of Tynesiders this was known as " the Bluestone," and it was here that Tommy first took up his station. He was blind, and usually wore a shabby over- coat reaching almost down to his heels, and a world too wide for him. His most striking peculiarity, however, was a continuous rocking and half-turning motion, caused by raising first one foot and then the other slightly from the ground, swaying his head in the meanwhile in unison with his body, and lightly but incessantly tapping his breast with the thumb of one hand. The latter action was doubtless due to a nervous affection, but the rocking movement is said to have been voluntary at first, and the explanation given of its origin is curious enough to be worth preserving, though exactly how much fact and how much fancy there is in this explanation I have no means of ascertaining. One thing, however, is certain. Tommy, when he was off the bridge, did not lift his feet alternately when standing, as he was accustomed to do on the bridge, and this I think we may take as one piece of evidence in favour of the account commonly believed in.

The Bluestone, where Tommy-on-the- Bridge first took his stand in the early sixties of last century, marked, as has been said, the boundary line separating the towns of Newcastle and Gateshead. When he stood still, Tommy had a foot in each ; when he rocked and lifted his feet alter- nately, though the one foot was clearly enough in Newcastle or Gateshead, as the case might be, the other foot, being for the moment off the ground, could not be said to be in either place. Tommy therefore claimed, as a logical deduction from these premises, that as he was in neither place altogether, it must follow that he could not be said to be in either place, and was con- sequently outside the sphere of police inter-