Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/520

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [iis.x. DEC. 20,1914.

"MADAME DKTJKY, AGED 116" (11 S. x. 467). Is your correspondent " pulling our leg " ? It looks very like it, but he will, perhaps, be acquitted for the joke is good.

The year 1791, when the old lady became so very lively before expiring so grace- fully, coincides with, and, of course, has reference to, the occasion when old Drury Lane Theatre was pulled down and rebuilt by Holland (reopened 12 March, 1794). The last performance was on 4 June, when ' The Country Girl ' and ' No Song, No Supper ' (hence the allusion in the extract), were played. " Dr. Palmer " is no doubt Jack Palmer (1742-98) "Plausible Jack" or else his brother Bobby (1757-1805). Both were well known actors at the Lane. Jack Palmer was always in such financial straits that he found it expedient to reside for a time in his dressing- room at the theatre, and when needed elsewhere he was conveyed in a cart, behind theatrical scenery. In 1789 he was committed to Surrey gaol as a rogue and a vagabond ; but the public loved him, and he was probably out again in time to be present at those well-attended obsequies of " Madame Drury."

Lamb compared the two Palmers in his essay ' On Some of the Old Actors.' There are portraits of both of them at the Garrick. But one need not labour this pleasantry, or we shall spoil it. The original joke may well have been Sheridan's. Readers need not be reminded of his interest in Drury Lane at the date in question.

A. L. HUMPHREYS.

187, Piccadilly, W.

ORTEGA IN NELSON'S STRAIT : FEATS OF SEAMANSHIP (11 S. x. 444). The following incident is probably not the one referred to, though it illustrates the unexpected diffi- culties which sometimes face our brave English skippers. On 7 Feb. last I sailed from Liverpool to New York on board the Cam- pania. After loading up the mails at Queens- town early on Sunday morning, 8 Feb., and proceeding some ten miles to sea, we en- countered a furious gale which damaged the rudder. It became necessary to stop the ship in the storm and carry out repairs while she tossed to and fro like a cork on the billows for six or seven hours. The storm increased in severity day by day, until the hurricane blew away the wireless apparatus on the masthead. We finally reached New York more than three days overdue, covered with ice, in a blizzard, with the thermo- meter registering about twenty degrees of frost. For several days no passenger was

allowed on deck, and the captain informed me it was the longest continuous storm in his lengthy experience. Both crew and passengers were denied practically all sleep for ten anxious days. WM. JAGGARD.

PEREGRINUS asks for. the date of a par- ticular incident at sea. I subjoin an extract from Haydn's ' Dictionary of Dates ' giving the information desirad :

"The Umbria, Cunard liner, ' Capt. M'Kay, with 380 passengers, left Liverpool for New York 17 Dec., endured bad weather and seas till '23 Dec., when the propeller-shaft broke and disabled her near Newfoundland ; the attempt of the Bohemia, Hamburg liner, to take her in tow failed ; at length the injury was repaired by the exertions of chief engineer Tomlinson and his staff, the Umbria proceeded on her voyage, and arrived at New York, amid great rejoicing, noon 31 Dec., 1892." Haydn's ' Dictionary of Dates,' s.v. ' Steam- engine.'

GEO. T. SHAW, Chief Librarian.

Liverpool Public Libraries.

The Daily Telegraph of the 9th inst. contains the following pleasing announce- ment :

"The Board of Trade have received, through the Foreign Office, a gold watch, which has been awarded by the French Government to Mr. Douglas Reid Kinneir, master of the steamship Ortega, of Liverpool, in recognition of his services in saving from capture 300 French reservists on board his ship by his skilful evasion of a German cruiser in the Straits of Magellan."

A. N. Q.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY KENTISH TOKENS (11 S. x. 449). At the latter end of the eighteenth century, in consequence of copper coinage being scarce, traders struck and put in circulation halfpenny tokens.

The first referred to by MR. GOWER is a Lamberhurst token : on edge, " Payable by J. Gibbs Lamberhurst."

No. 2 is a Goudhurst token, of which two were struck similar on obverse and reverse : one has on edge, " Payable by W. Myns Goudhurst"; the other, "Payable by W. Fuggle Goudhurst."

No. 3 is a Staplehurst token : on edge, " Payable by J. Simmons, Staplehurst."

W. J. M.

" WE " OR " I " IN AUTHORSHIP (11 S. x. 288, 336, 433). Permit one who has often employed the expression " the writer " (so severely condemned by DR. J. WILLCOCK) to offer a few words in defence of the practice. May it not be conceded with grace that any term is to be welcomed which affords relief from the constant " I " so unpleasantly prominent nowadays ? How