Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/263

 n s. i. MA*. 26, mo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

255

rather convincing reasons for the assumption that Handley Cross was meant for Chelten- ham, and that the person who suggested Jorrocks to Mr. Surtees's mind for it is stated that the author was visiting in the neighbourhood of Cheltenham when he out- lined the novel was a double Gloucester welter-weight farmer named Paul Crump, who hunted a pack of harriers, and resided at Coomb Hill, near Tewkesbury.

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

NOTTINGHAM EARTHENWARE TOMBSTONE (11 S. i. 189). I wish MR. STAPLETON had given the dimensions of this headstone. It is an expensive process to produce large slabs of earthenware, and they are not so durable in the open air as stone. I have visited every churchyard in and near the Potteries. It would be misleading to call any earthen- ware memorial I have seen ti tombstone. Occasionally one meets with a small earthen- ware slab not exceeding a superficial square foot, or a miniature monument of pyramidal form under a glass shade, with the name, &c., painted on them. Sometimes they are used as chimney-piece ornaments.

A costly and elaborate monumental structure has recently been erected in Burslem Cemetery, built of glazed ceramic blocks and slabs produced, I believe, by Doulton & Co. It is looked upon as a unique specimen of the adaptation of the potter's art to monumental structures.

B. D. MOSELEY. Burslem.

CHINESE GALLERY IN LONDON (11 S. i. 207). In 1843 was published

"A Descriptive Catalogue of the Chinese Collection now exhibiting at St. George's Place, Hyde Park Corner, with Condensed Accounts of the Genius, Government, History, Literature, Agriculture, Arts, Trade, Manners, Customs, and S<>< -hi Life of the Celestial Empire. By William B. Langdon, Curator of the Chinese Collection." Tli'- entrance to the exhibition forms the frontispiece to the volume, which is large octavo, and consists of 169 pages with a number of illustrations. If this be the " Chinese Gallery n in question, and the loan of the volume is desired, I shall be happy to lend it to A. H. D.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

In 1843 there was a " Chinese Collection " exhibited at St. George's Place, Hyde Park Corner. My copy of the Catalogue has an undated handbill attached, showing that the exhibition was afterwards at Paragon Street,

U""- R. M.

Marylebone.

The Chinese Gallery was at Hyde Park Corner. The South African Exhibition there is advertised in The Illustrated London News, 4 May, 1850, p. 302. FREDERIC BOASE.

[LADY RUSSELL, MR. W. DOUGLAS, and MB. R. PIERPOINT also thanked for replies.]

BROKEN ON THE WHEEL (10 S. vii. 147, 292). The following information, taken from the newspapers at the Town Archives, Magdeburg, confirms the account by the trustworthy eyewitness at the earlier of the above references. I think I need not notice the reply, except to say that I did not see it until lately, as I was seriously ill when it appeared, and for long afterwards. As it threw doubt on my note, I determined, as the simplest way of removing it, to apply (as any one might) in Germany, where the execution took place so lately. I may use the expression, as it was in my lifetime.

The result is given below exactly as I received it, with the note by my kind corre- spondent, who calls attention to the severity of the sentence as pronounced. Still, I should be inclined to trust the eyewitness as to the more merciful way in which the sentence was carried out that is, that the wretch was first rendered insensible.

" On the 7th of April, 1837, Friederike Chris- tiane Schliephaske, born in the year 1813, was executed for the murder of her mistress Friederike Grosskopf, aged forty, whom she slew with a hatchet whilst asleep, to get possession of a small sum of money, afterwards found concealed in the ashes of the kitchen hearth.

" The act of condemnation is worded as follows :

" ' His Majesty having confirmed the judgment passed by the Royal Court of Law that the culprit is to be brought from life to death by being broken by the wheel from beloiv, this punishment has been carried out to-day.

Magdeburg, 7 April, 1837.

Royal Inquisitoriar. Fritze.'

" The crime of the Schliephaske having been carried out under aggravating circumstances, she was ordered to be broken from beloic, which means that the hangman began at the feet, moving upwards. The more merciful way was by beginning from the top, crushing at once the vital organs. From the wording of the judgment it is clear that she was not strangled, but broken alive. The customary way was to tie the con- demned on a board or wooden cross."

HAND FORD.

YULE LOG IN CORNWALL (11 S. i. 129). The using of a fragment of the last year's log for the following year appears to be a relic of the Celtic tradition as to the continuity of the solar fire from day to day, since our ancient British ancestors rendered homage to the fire on the hearth as the symbol of the