Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/413

 ii s. i. MAY 21, 1910.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

405

The paper from which I quote gives some curious details of the auction, which is conducted with great ceremony, a fine of sixpence being levied upon any person who leaves his seat whilst the candle is burning.

My only object in sending this note is to record the fact that the custom of employ- ing a lighted candle at auctions still flourishes.

R. B. P.

"FiRE OUT." I think the origin of this phrase was recently discussed in ' N. & Q.,' but cannot find it in the indexes. A letter of Sir Thomas Roe of 24 Nov., 1641, sug- gests the solution. He writes (Eng. Hist. Rev., xxiv. 272) :

"I have discovered and found the foxe in his burrow; but cannot yet absolutely unkennel him. [ shall this weeke fire him out, all upon a necessitye to make the Spanyards speak, or confesse their tongues are tyed. So that it seems originally to have meant to expel a fox from his earth by lighting a fire at one end of it. The modern American use (see 'N.E.D.') probably combines this idea with that of the rapidity of action of fire-arms. Q. V.

[The origin of the phrase " fire out" and its American usage were discussed at 10 S. vii. 308 ; viii. 37, 454.]

" IRISH PRIDE." In an old fragment given me by my mother many years ago "Irish pride," "Irish coin," and "beggar's inkle 5? occur :

He dressed himself in Irish pride, A wig without a wrinkle, A wooden sword by his side, Tied on with beggar's inkle. Straight he went unto his chest, And when he did look in it, Three-halfpence of good Irish coin He put into his pocket. His pocket being so highly charged, He was afraid of robbin', And all the way he rode along Cried, " Mend your pace, old Dobbin ! " t reads somewhat like a political squib of the early part of last century.

THOS. RATCLIFFE. u orksop.

TAKING POSSESSION or HOUSE PROPERTY.

-Not long ago I spent a penny on ' The

Hungry Forties,' by Mrs. Cobden Unwin,

and learned something about a decade when

much happened of which I was but little

conscious. A curious way of taking pos-

Bsion of house property is mentioned

"The first we ever 'card of Mr. Cobden was one day when I was a-sittin' near the front gate and three men come along over the hill; they stopped

when they saw me and arst me what was the name of the village, and when I said 'Heyshott,' they brightened .up and said as 'ow they'd been a-'untin' for it a long while; they said they wanted Dunford, and I pointed 'em out the way, and off they went ; and as I passed by Dunford, Mary Tiller came a-runnin' out to me, and sez she, 'I wor just a-goin' up to Walker's to see Gran-ma, and I see three strange men at Dunford taking a top brick off the chimley of each of the cottages to take back to Mr. Cobden ' there wor three labourers' cottages there in those days ; and I sez, ' Mary, that's a sign some one's bought the place an' is comin' to live 'ere ; you mark my words,' I sez. An' sure enough, before many days were over we 'ad Mr. Cobden down."

Mr. Cobden might say, as said Shakespeare's Mr. Smith, ' ' The bricks are alive at this day to testify it," i.e., the act of seizin, " there- fore deny it not.'" ST. S WITHIN.

THE RECORDS : THEIR EARLY DEPOSI- TORIES. The Report, published by Baskett, 1719, of the Lords' Committees on the con- dition and method of storing the State Papers affords several interesting identifica- tions. Thus in the Tower the chapel of the White Tower was in use for the purpose, and a committee advises " that a large room on the east side of the White Tower, adjoyning to Caesar's Chapel, being sixty- four foot long and thirty-one foot wide, should be allotted - l for the reception of records of the Court of Chancery. " Caesar's Chapel," presumably part of the disused royal apartments, is again named as being in bad repair, the floor ' ' being much broken and subjected to the raising of dust, to the damage of the records " ; and it is recom- mended that it be strongly boarded. A quantity of papers had been brought from a house " belonging to the King's Fish- monger in Fish Yard, over the Prince's Chambers." In the Brick Tower two rooms or garrets were in use, also the whole of the Wakefield Tower; and "Near Hell Yard

there are two ground rooms wherein

parchments and tallies have lain in disorder for many years past."

Complaint is made of the condition of the Court of Exchequer and other buildings at Westminster ; and in ' ' the Treasury situate over the gateway going out of the New Palace Yard into St. Margaret's Lane " some very valuable deeds and surveys on the demolition of the monasteries were kept :

" This Treasury wanting reparation and fitting up, the case thereof is humbly submitted to your Lordships ; besides, one of the tenants adjoyning hath broke a door into the leads over the said Treasury ; and part of the building underneath, and on one side is lately encroached upon and annoy'd by keeping of an ale-house, and building f leads even with the windows."