Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/394

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. i. MAY u, mo.

introduction (writing without book), about 1872, with fresh memories of the old paved yard, and strongly reminiscent of the added value to such a game of back and side walls, I took counsel with some of my brother officers at Shoeburyness ; and, with the aid of some damaged 9 ft. by 9 ft. Artillery targets, we built and floored our court, and dubbed the game " Shoeburynessticke"," which, obviously clumsy, was soon shortened to of the targets dictated those of the court, and 9 ft. was a convenient and sufficient height for the walls, a wire out-of-play part being added to keep the ball in court. A tape service line was soon found to be necessary, and its height was only settled after much discussion and trial. At first we had intended to have chases, but we found that the difficulty of marking was pro- hibitive, and with the abandonment of the chases came that of tennis scoring, which, meaningless without the chases, gave way to the simpler form of scoring used in the game of rackets. I am told that the courts at Shoeburyness have recently been lengthened, and this has, no doubt, necessitated an alteration in the height of the service line.
 * ' StickeV' Hence the name. The dimensions

There are stick courts now in many garrisons in England and abroad, and one or two private courts. It is, in my opinion, a better game than squash rackets, in that four people can play and that a single is not too exhausting in a hot climate. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

DESMOND O'CALLAGHAN, Maj.-Gen.

53, Iverna Court, Kensington, W., April.

R. T. BEVAN.

Bessells Green, Chevening, Kent.

OPEN- AIR MARRIAGE. The following para- graph from The Times of 9 April surely deserves reproduction in ' N. & Q.' :

"A Marriage in the Open Air. A marriage was celebrated yesterday on a grass slope among the hills on the border between England and Scotland. The bride lived on the Cumberland side of the bor- der, about 50 yards up the hillside from the stream which divides England and Scotland, while the bridegroom is a shepherd belonging to the Teviot- head district of the neighbouring county of Rox- burgh. The English marriage law does not allow a marriage at a private house, but it was desired that the marriage should be at the bride's house. To meet the difficulty, the services of a Scottish minister were obtained to perform the ceremony, but it was necessary that the wedding should be solemnized on Scottish ground. Accordingly it was decided to have the marriage performed in the open air. The customary young men's race was run after the marriage, and the party then recrossed the stream and mounted the hill to the bride's house."

A. F. R.

' * HUMANITARIAN.'* The Humanitarian League has recently completed its twentieth year of good work. The able editor of its official periodical, The Humanitarian, points out in its birthday number for May that several phrases which have since become current terms were coined or first circulated

by the League, e.g., " murderous millinery, 51 "blood sports, " " nagellomania," and " brutalitarian."

"Even the word 'humanitarian' itself, in the sense in which we know it, has been brought into far commoner use during the campaign of the past twenty years, and has now almost ousted the old theological, or anti-theological, term with which it was once frequently confused."

This gave me occasion to look up in 'N.E.D.' the words and phrases which Mr. Salt claims as creations of the contributors of the League, and to my astonishment I saw that none of them are there recorded. And, what was more painful to me, under ' 'humani- tarian," A. 3, I found: "Nearly always contemptuous, connoting one who goes to excess in his humane principles." This is decidedly one-sided, and, though certainly unintentionally, unjust. "Sometimes" or "often" would have sufficiently met the requirements of the case.

G. KRUEGEB.

Berlin.

[We think the 'N.E.D/ is justified, alike in its exclusions and its definition. DR. KRUEGER is a learned scholar in English, but can hardly claim the experience of a native in judging matters of English usage.]

SPEBMACETI AND AMBERGRIS. It has been stated in the course of the discussion of the authenticity of the alleged Da Vinci bust that spermaceti was not known before the year 1700. It would be truer to say that its source was not known, and that the name was applied to different substances. Thus in the ' Sinonoma Bartholomei l we read : * ' Ambra, spermaceti ut quidam dicunt, sed procul dubio est gummi arboris J? ; and the ' Alphita s glossary has an entry to the same effect. In these cases it is probably used for ambergris, which was supposed to be the sperm of the whale, and the difference between which and amber (a vegetable resin) was not fully understood.

Apparently, too, John Leo, in his ' Ac- count of the Kingdom of Morocco '- (1526) in Harris's 'Voyages, 1 uses it of ambergris. He says :

" Upon this Shore there is great store of Amber to be found, which the Portuguese and Fessan

by the Sea, is cast upon the next Shoar.'

So, again, Thomas Randolph, in his description of what he saw in his voyage to Russia (Harris's * Voyages J ) in 1568 :

" In our Voyage was nothing remarkable but the great number of Whales engendring together, and the Sperma Ceti swimming upon the Sea."