Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/157

 10 s. VIIL AUG. 17, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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e ripiglio allora bupn concetto di questa carne d' Adamo, e degli spirit! che porta.'

" Questo parole del sommo poeta britannico mi restarono impresse indelebilmente nell' animo, e confesso d' aver tratto piu d' una volta gran gio- vamento dal far come lui, allorche 1' orribile tenta- -zione della misantropia m' assalse."

JOHN E. B. MAYOR.

.St. John's College, Cambridge.

DEVONSHIRE WITCHCRAFT. At the recent gathering of the Devonshire Association, according to The Plymouth Weekly Mercury of 27 July,

"the Rev. F. E. W. Langdon related what he had been told by old people of Membury witches. Hannah Henley, who lived over sixty years ago, was carried away by the devil (laughter). She was found on a Good Friday morning lying dead on a branch stretching over the stream close to Boobhill, where she lived. She had a kettle by her side, and her body was terribly scratched and bruised. She had been dragged through one of the lights of the window and over a great high thorn rattle, on the top of which was some part of her clothing. Her 'three cats were with her. She had been ill the day before it happened, and some people had offered to stay with her, but she told them they had better go away, as she would die hard that night. At the inquest a verdict was returned of 'water on the brain ' (laughter). Everybody had been afraid of her. She had a grudge against Farmer P., and one day, when his team of horses was returning from ploughing, she was seen drawing a circle with two sticks on the road in front of them, into which they stepped and all died. She laid a curse on some cows belonging to Farmer D., and they went blind .and mad. She was one day coming up through Farmer P.'s yard, and she looked into a fold where there were some lambs. They all turned head over tail until they died (laughter)."

HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

DOOR-SHUTTING PROVERB. If my memory is not at fault, a Lincolnshire saying like the Nottinghamshire one given below ap- peared in a recent volume of * N. & Q. : "" When people don't shut doors properly, folks say to them, ' I see you come from Warsop way ; you don't know how to shut doors behind you.' "

It is difficult to understand what gave rise to the proverb, and what its full signi- ficance originally was. T. R. E. N. T.

"FTFE-BOY." This compound does not appear in ' H.E.D.,' but it would seem to have been a recognized one, for ' The Annual Register ' for 1804 (p. 404) records that on 1 August, " as one of the fife-boys belonging to the 4th loyal London volunteers, was sitting on the edge of a boat in the Thames, he was accidentally struck by the oar of another boat, which knocked him into the water, and he was drowned."

A. F. R.

MAYPOLE AT HUBY, YORKSHIRE. I have et the date escape me of The Yorkshire Herald from which I cut, one day last May, an account of the hoisting of a new maypole at Huby, near York. I think the record is worthy of preservation :

" Last year the Maypole which stood at the southern end of the village of Huby was condemned by the local authorities as being unsafe, and was, consequently, levelled to the ground. The people of Huby, however, did not wish to see the custom associated with the Maypole lapse, and a committee was formed, under the presidency of the Vicar of Sutton (the Rev. H. B. Drew), to obtain another pole by public subscription. A fine Norwegian pine, over 60 feet long, was bought, and its hoisting yesterday was the occasion for some charming May Day celebrations on the village green A pro- cession was formed at the north end of the village, whence the pole, resplendent in a coat of red, white, and blue paint, was carried on car- wheels to its site, headed by the Easingwold Town Brass Band, a contingent of juvenile dancers from Huntington bringing up the rear. Considerable interest was shown in the event, scores of people attending from the surrounding villages. While the Maypole was being hoisted the Huntington children, who wore vari - coloured costumes of art muslm, dantily tripped round a miniature Maypole erected on the village green. The youngsters went through the intricacies of plaiting the ribbons with an absence of hesitancy which spoke volumes for the training they had received."

ST. SWITHIN.

EXETER HALL : ITS CLOSING. In The Daily Telegraph of Friday, 19 July, the following advertisement appeared, but it probably escaped the notice of many who would have been interested in seeing it :

" Closing of Exeter Hall. Meetings for Praise, Prayer, and Testimonies will be held at Exeter Hall, To-Day (Friday), from eleven to two o clock, from three to five o'clock, and the final service from seven to nine o'clock, when Mr. T. A. Denny will preside. Several well-known friends will speak, and Mr. Charles M. Alexander (just arrived from America) will Sing several New Solos and will speak. Admission free. To-day at eleven, three, and seven o'clock."

The same newspaper of the following day had a column of sympathetic comments, the reader being reminded that Exeter Hall,

"as two generations have known it, no longer exists. The last meeting to be held within its precincts took place yesterday, and the doors were closed. On the seats and windows of the meeting- room one of the smaller halls were the chalk- marks affixed by the auctioneer, who on ^luesday will be scattering the fittings far and wide. The London County Council is stated to be to blame for the "demise of the famous gathering-ground of evangelists and philan- thropists," on account of the demands made upon the tenants, who felt that they