Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/202

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NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. x. SEPT. 5,

" LEFT HIS CORPS " (11 S. ix. 225 ; x. 158) So the term corsaint was applied not only to the dead body of a saint, but to the same saint considered as living. See ' N.E.D.,' and ' Metrical Life of St. Cuthbert ' (Surtees toe.), 254.

A maidservant in Lincolnshire on her return from a funeral entertainment informed her mistress that she had enjoyed herself very much indeed, and that " the corpse's brother was the life of the party." " The corpse " had been an accepted suitor of her own. J. T. F.

Winter-ton, Lines.

The way in which I have heard the tale is at the house of mourning, when the under- taker said to one of the mourners : " The corpse's brother would like to take a glass of wine with him." H. A. C. S.

PALM THE BOOKSELLER, SHOT BY NAPO- LEON (11 S. x. 10, 55, 76, 136). The refer- ences already given do not contain any mention of Poultney Bigelow's ' The Ger- man Struggle for Liberty,' which, starting in the July, 1895, number of Harper s New Monthly Magazine, ran through several months. The opening chapter, consisting of one-and-a-half pages of letterpress and one full-page illustration of the tragic event, is entitled ' Execution of John Palm, Book- seller.' I do not know if the articles were afterwards published in book -form.

RONALD DIXON.

46, Marlborough Avenue, Hull.

SPOON FOLK-LORE (11 S. x. 146). A similar superstition, but in regard to um- brellas, is not uncommon about here (Bury, Lancashire). Not so long since, in one of the principal streets, I heard a young shop- woman exclaim to a sceptical female friend who was standing smilingly by a fallen umbrella, " Oh, do pick it up, please ! am so superstitious. I am frightened some- thing will happen if I pick it up." What connexion there is between a dropped article and bad luck I cannot fathom, but I rather fancy the ill-luck is in the dropping of the thing, and the kindness of the intervening friend breaks the spell.

W. H. PINCHBECK.

To drop a spoon is a sign that an alter- cation will speedily take place, and remarks to that effect when a spoon is dropped may still be heard at dinner- or tea-table. Years ago, if a silver spoon solid silver was dropped, some one would be sure to exclaim, '' There goes sixpence ! " meaning that the value of the article was depreciated to the extent of sixpence. Many poor families

possessed " solid " silver teaspoons, am orized them much. A set of six which possess constituted a previous owner " bank," for they were wont to go to " Uncl John '" to fill a gap in finances on the week of every month, to be redeemed th second week in the following month.

THOS. PvATCLIFFE. Southfield, "Worksop.

" CHATTERBOX " (11 S. x. 128). Accordii to Allibone's ' Dictionary,' William Her Pyne's " Wine and Walnuts : or, After Dinner Chat, by Ephraim Hardcastle," originally published in The Literary Gazette, 1820-22. The reference to " the last cen- tury " in the passage quoted by M. is rathe vague.

" Chatter Box. One whose tongue twelve score to the dozen, a chattering ma or woman," appears in ' A Classical Die tionary of the Vulgar Tongue ' (by Fram-i Grose), 3rd edition, 1796.

Since writing the above, I have referred to Farmer and Henley's ' Slang and its Analogues,' 1890-94. I find that the above definition of chatter box is there quoted from the 1785 edition of Grose's ' Dictionary.'

It appears, then, that chatter box, meaning a chattering man or woman, was current fifteen years before the end of the eighteenth century, and thirty-five years before Pyne began to publish his ' Wine and Walnuts.' ROBERT PIERPOINT.

LANGUAGE AND PHYSIOGNOMY (10 S. xii. 365, 416; 11 S. i. 33; x. 158). A dentist once told me that protruding teeth usually resulted from allowing children to suck their fingers. The pressure of the fingers, especially of a finger curled over the thumb, pushed the upper teeth and jaw out, while the lower teeth were pressed inwards.

When I was in Switzerland in 1881 with a brother, we marvelled at the ugly, but flexible mouths of the people near Morat, and asked each other whether the vowels of the German patois spoken by many of the families had any effect on their faces.

P. W. G. M.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE WARWICKSHIRE DIALECT (11 S. ix. 288, 337, 376, 394; x. 156). I do not know who is responsible for the assertion that in Shakespeare we find words " used in no other part of the country than Warwickshire." Such a -claim displays an entire lack of local knowledge. If you leave Stratford-on-Avon, by the Shipston-on- Stour road, and travel four miles, you enter, in the following order, the parishes of