Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/543

 10 s. vii. JUNE s, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Eminent Persons of Scotland,' 1799, con- taining many manuscript notes referring to the family of Seton (who are represented by several portraits), made by a former owner of the book, William Seaton. This was probably the William Seaton who died in 1852. I have also seen a religious work with the fly-leaf inscription " William Seaton, Come." Could any one give me any infor- mation about this 'person his birth, family connexions, and so on ? As far as I have been able to ascertain, he was not minister of the church where he is buried, so his presence in Rochdale must be accounted for.

RACEDHAM.

LINCOLNSHIRE JEST. I am reminded by my friend MB. PEACOCK'S story of the match (ante, p. 396) of being told on the best authority that the proper thing for a maiden to do, when her lover is slack in coming to the point, is to hand him a sprig of thyme, to indicate that she thinks it 's time.

J. T. F.

Durham.

" JOMMOX " : " WUDGET " : " WOMPUS."

I note these three unligated words merely to aid In their registry or educe knowledge. The first two were common in my Con- necticut home fifty years ago.

" Jommox " is evidently the same as "jammock" given by Wright. It meant a hodge-podge of food on one's plate. The further use cited by him, of a crushed fruit or other such " squash," in the English sense, I never heard. As usual, a verb had been formed from it : " all jommoxed up." The form seems to preserve an older pro- nunciation than Wright's.

A " wudget " was a close-packed and crumpled bunch of something normally smooth and flat evidently a close relation of Wright's " wuddle," to hold a child in a misshapen bundle. Bedclothes tossed in a heap on the bed or the floor were " thrown in a wudget " ;, the contents of a satchel jammed in anyhow were " a wudget " ; more curiously, a necktie in a wisp around one's neck was " tied in a wudget." In Maine the form is " hudge," which is inter- esting as being the connecting link with tl huddle " undoubtedly the common parent (directly or through dead forms) of all : huddle, wuddle, hudge, wudget.

The third word has come into widespread use since my boyhood, no more in New England than otherwhere. Probably the readers of ' N. & Q.' are familiar with it, as meaning a huge, shapeless, unmanageable mess. " He has got a wompus on his

hands " will be said of a reformer tackling a social problem too heavy for his powers ; " I had no idea my theme was going to grow into such a wompus," a student will say ; and I have heard various Presidential messages indecorously, if accurately, referred to as " wompuses." I have no idea whether it is merely a quasi- onomatopoeic nonsense- word or has a real origin. I heard it first about forty years ago ; I do not know whether it had been long in use then.

FORREST MORGAN. Hartford, Conn.

(SJwms.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

JOAN D'ARC. Some five or six years ago I saw in the crypt of the Abbey of Saint- Denis, near Paris, an old slab pushed in a corner, and surely in the style of the fifteenth century, with an effigy of a woman clad in armour, and around the figure a Gothic inscription dedicating the ex-voto to " Mon- seigneur Sainct-Denis " of " le harnoys de la Pucelle." Curiously enough, the armour is black with gold rivets and fittings. I made sure at the time this slab must have been published, but I find no trace of it in the innumerable books I have consulted. Has any English traveller noticed t nd drawn it ?

Meanwhile, there is a cross between Saint- Germain and Poissy erected by Dunois, after the trial for the rehabilitation of Jeanne d'Arc. I do not know of any drawing published. CH. ROESSLER.

3, Rue Le Marois, Auteuil.

PINCUSHIONS. Can any reader inform me when pincushions first came into fashion, and how pins were kept before that time ? ELEANOR D. LONGMAN.

18, Thurloe Square, S.W.

CROOKED PINS. Can any reader inform me why crooked pins were considered lucky, and the origin of the idea ?

ELEANOR D. LONGMAN.

FORD THE FIGHTING PREACHER. Mer- curius Academicus (2 March, 1646) gives a lively account of how one Ford, a captain under Col. John Bingham, Governor of Poole, attempted to preach in Wimborne Minster. The congregation refused to listen, in spite of the presence of the Parliamentary