Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/254

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NOTES AND QUERIES, no s. VIL MARCH ie, 1907.

trans. Cary), which only recently came to my notice. It states that after the Persians overthrow at Platsea, among human abnor- malities noticed when the dead bodies were bared of flesh, " there was also discovered a jaw, and the upper jaw had teeth growing in a piece, all in one bone, both the front teeth and the grinders."

It is to be noted that in the case of Pyrrhus, too, if we follow Plutarch, to the upper jaw was restricted the growth of his single tooth. KTJMAGUSU MINAKATA.

Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

" TAPING SHOOS." In an old oak parish chest, possessed of three locks, but now minus any keys, in the fifteenth-century parish church of St. Stephen at Treleigh (Cornwall), is a document containing a list of pauper expenses for 1709. The entry for " taping shoos " occurs frequently. Taping means soleing, and is a word still in very general use in the West country. Indeed in the ordinary spheres of life eight out of ten people would say, "Those boots must be tapped" rather than that they should be "soled." In broad Devon the rendering would be : " Ef zo be yii taps thew biites, they'll least awl drii tha zummer." This quotation I give from the late Mrs. Sarah Hewett's ' Peasant Speech of Devon ' (1892). HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

" PRECKET " : " CAGEFUL OF TEETH."- A doctor in North Devon, on visiting a woman, found her scolding her child a girl of twelve with much severity. The child left the room, and the doctor asked what was the matter. " Well," said her mother, " she 's so precket " ; and then, to explain precket, added, " There 's too much formality .about her ; it 's as if she wanted to reign over us all." The idea of attributing the formality which surrounds the throne to the naughtiness of a child of twelve strikes me as very ludicrous.

In North Devon they also say of a mouth full of teeth, " So-and-so lias a good cageful of teeth." T. M. W.

SPRING-HEELED JACK. In 1906 there was published a book which received some favourable notice from reviewers, ' The Revelations of Inspector Morgan,' by Oswald Crawfurd. One of the cases, ' The Flying Man,' pp. 95-192, seems to be founded on the accounts of ' Phenomenal Footprints in Snow ' collected in 7 S. viii., ix. (1889-90). But a similar story of Spring-heeled, Spring- .all, or Springle Jack forms the chief excite-

ment of ' Chums : a Tale for the Youngsters,' bv Harleigh Severne, illustrated by Harry Furniss, 1878. W. C. B.

" BELL-COMB " FOR RINGWORM. Our parish clerk informs me that up to a few years ago he had applications for " bell- comb," the grease from the church bells, which was used as an ointment in cases of ringworm and shingles. The ringers con- firmed this, and also vouched for the efficacy of the remedy. I presume this custom is not peculiar to Egham, although I have not heard of it before. FREDERIC TURNER.

Esmond, Egham, Surrey.

FEMALE AUCTIONEERS. (See 8 S. xii. 327, 493). In the early seventies there was a comic song in some vogue, entitled ' The Female Auctioneer,' which commenced : For I 'm the female auctioneer, And I have not come for pelf, For the only thing I 've got to sell Is just to sell mvself.

A. F. R.

A JUNIUS CLAIMANT. The Dover Express and East Kent News of 28 Dec., 1906, under the heading ' Mr. John Smith : his Doings and his Folly,' has the following :

"The self-denying devotion which John Smith manifested with regard to his military leader (Lord George Sackville) has suggested the idea that he was the writer of the ' Letters of Junius.' " Mr. John, or Captain, Smith was the father of Sir Sidney Smith, R.N.

R. J. FYNMORE.

" PARATOUT." This word is not in ' N.E.D.,' but it Occurs in the subjoined announcement, which appeared in The Observer of 10 Aug., 1806, under the heading ' New Inventions ' :

"Messrs. Barnet, of Birmingham, some months ago, obtained a patent for an improvement xtpon Umbrellas, which articles they have since further improved, and given to them the name of Para- touts. The form is more like a dome than those of the common kind, and effectually protects the holder from rain and snow ; while, by a rapid alteration of form, it will completely shelter any part of the body, without exposing another part." ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

JOHN TALMAN, ARCHITECT. The notices of Talman in the books of reference are extremely meagre. He was the son of William Talman, an architect with an extensive practice, who designed Chatsworth in 1681 for the first Duke (then Earl) of Devonshire, and several other noblemen's seats, including Fetcham Park, Leather- head, for Arthur Moore, M.P. for Grimsby (1695), which was decorated by Laguerre