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NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. i. M AK. 12, 1910.

SCHEFFELDE IN COM. CANTIJE. This place

is referred to in Burton's ' Monasticon Eboracense ' as having some centuries ago a church. Can any reader identify it3 position, or give the modern name if changed ? The only approach to it that occurs is Sheffield Park in Sussex. Might it be anciently a coast church that has shared the fate of Dunwich ? R. B.

Upton.

HOLE-SILVER. This fine was paid by the vills of Coin Rogers, Coin St. Aldwyn, and Duntisborne Abbots, co. Glos. What was the nature of it ? ST. CLAIB BADDELEY.

GUILDHALL : OLD STATUES. Opposite p. 71 of Price's 'Descriptive Account of the Guildhall of London * is a reproduction of a drawing in the Gardner Collection of six statues from the outside of the old porch. Price states :

" In 1794 Mr. Alderman Boydell induced the Cor- poration to present them to Thomas Banks, the sculptor, who held them in great estimation as works of art. At his death in 1809 they were pur- chased for 100?. by Henry Bankes, M.P., for Corfe Castle."

Can any readers kindly inform me where these statues are now ? S. P. Q. R.

GUILDHALL MS. ON CITY CHURCHES. Can any one assign a fairly close date to the account of Wren's churches constitut- ing MS. 44 in the Guildhall Library ? It looks like the writing of the eighteenth or very early nineteenth century. The author seems unknown to the authorities. WILLIAM MCMURBAY.

SCHULTZ'S ' MY LIFE AS AN INDIAN.' Will some transatlantic correspondent -of ' N. & Q.' tell me whether the life of the Black- feet described in ' My Life as an Indian, ? by J. W. Schultz, 1907, is considered a correct account of the tribe, as it existed in buffalo- hunting days ? Were the higher types of Red Indian in reality so fine a race before they were contaminated by the Palefaces ? Had they so many virtues, and so few vices ? Or did the author as he wrote look back on the past through the rose-coloured mists which often brighten it ? M. P.

"LiTEBABY Gossip.' 5 Is "Claudius Clear'* correct in his statement in The British Weekly of 10 February to the effect ' ' that the originator of literary gossip in this country is still living " ? He refers to Mr. Francis Espinasse, a venerable Brother of the Charterhouse. I have made the discovery,

at all events, that as far back as 22 Oct., 1831, there appeared for the first time in The Athenceum a column headed ' Our Weekly Gossip on Literature and Art l ; that on 13 Sept., 1837, ' Our Weekly Gossip l took the place of the longer title ; and that the familiar phrase ' Literary Gossip ' as a heading dates from the issue of 30 Oct., 1869. Mr. Espinasse, who is in his eighty- seventh year, was certainly not associated with The Athenceum in 1831. J. GBIGOB. 14, Crofton Road, Camberwell, S.E.

HANDLEY CBOSS. Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' inform me whether Handley Cross, which gives a title to the well-known sport- ing novel by Robert Surtees, is intended to represent any particular district of England ?

P. D. M.

" BUSH INN " AT STAINES. Where can I find an account of this famous old hostelry ? HOBACE BLEACKLEY.

4t CUCKOOS TO CLEAR THE MUD AWAY."- Several ' times during February I heard middle-aged people say in relation to the weather : " We shan't have it better until the cuckoos come to clear the mud away." Others said " crows, a &c., and as the latter, when grubbing for their young, get on the land at least a month before the cuckoo comes, the crow seems the more likely bird, and I shall be glad to know how the saying runs elsewhere.

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

WITHAM FAMILY. Can any of your readers give me information as to the ancestry of Abraham Witham, Consul - General at Minorca about 1780 ? E. T. C. BOWEB.

94, Piccadilly, W.

LA JEUNESSE. ' Sir Walter Scott's Friends,* by Florence MacCunn (Black- wood), has in the chapter on ' Tom Purdie,* p. 351, this :

" La Jeunesse the saner prototype of Caleb Balderstone is as perfect a gentleman of the ancien regime as the master whose coat he brushes.

Again, p. 352 :

" The hunt, cut out of toast, galloping over a landscape of boiled spinach the triumph of La Jeunesse's skill was perhaps a reminiscence of a Bowhill plat."

I cannot find La Jeunesse in any of Scott's writings, nor can I identify the hunt of toast galloping over boiled spinach. Can any reader of ' N. & Q. 1 assist me ?

F. N. THOBOWGOOD.

Windham Club.