Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/149

 US. XL FEB. 13, 1915.]

NOTES AND QUERIES

139

the issue of some chapters on the Borough Election proceedings in the mid - eighteenth century. The Misses Penfold entrusted the result of his labours to Mr. P. Woods, who had been associated with their brother in his later researches, with a view to the completion of the work. Fresh sources of information have since become available, and the Rector, the Rev. G. H. Aitken, urged Mr. S wanton to compile a general history of the place.

The history opens with Haslemere in the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, and illustrations are given from the collection of flint implements found in the district formed by Mr. Allen Chandler, and others. Sir Jonathan Hutchinson and his brother Edward collected many flint implements, in the early seventies, from fields near the Moat Spring at Inval. Pigmy implements have been found in considerable numbers on Blackdown, and Mr. Williams has collected them in the Hindhead district. There is a small British camp, probably of late Bronze or early Iron Age, on the golf links at Beacon Hill, Hindhead ; and some frag- ments of pottery, and part of a quern-stone found near by, are deposited in the golf club-house. Mr. Swanton pleads that steps should be taken to ensure the safety of the camp, which has suffered much mutilation since 1908.

In November, 1905, some fragments of pottery were discovered near Beech Road, excavations were made, and three cinerary urns, with a splendid series of accessory vessels, were found. Some of these were exhibited at the meeting of the Society of Antiquaries on 21 June, 1906, when Dr. (now Sir) Arthur Evans said : " The Haslemere pottery is very varied in shape, and in the quality and thickness of the paste. Some of the vessels, even now after the lapse of probably two thou- sand years, still retain a fine glaze." It is not known if the Romans worked iron in the Hasle- mere district, and at present there is no evidence that they ever had a settlement there, though their influence is discernible in some of the pottery found.

With reference to the origin of the name Haslemere, it is stated that " it has been hitherto rather taken for granted that the first element in the name of our town is derived from the Saxon hccsel, the hazel. In all probability the Saxons grew the hazel for its fruit, and as valuable under- wood ; -it is therefore unlikely that any particular spot would have been named after so common a shrub such designation would not have been sufficiently distinctive." The authors favour the suggestion that Hasle is derived from a family name, and in support of this argument they adduce the fact that the older name of Pycards (now Pickhurst) in Ghiddingfold, dating from 1350, was Hesull or Heysulle, and owners of the land in the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., II., arid III. were Peter, Richard, and Peter de Heysulle.

The folk-lore of Haslemere shows many old customs. There are some inhabitants who still remember the ceremony of wassailing the apples at Anstead Brook on New Year's Eve ; while a few old people have a dim belief in the value of cork and wood as a safeguard against cramp, and in the Educational Museum may be seen speci- mens of cramp-balls that were carried for many years in the waistcoat pockets of men now living in Haslemere. The custom of riding a Jack-o'- I^ent on Easter Monday ia also well remembered.

Among old songs, that entitled ' The Royal Oak v is quoted in full, and the music also is given. It tells of a captain "on the salt sea " who sighted ten Turkish sails, and on being commanded to haul down his flag, fought them and destroyed six. Three ran away, and One we towed into Portsmouth harbour, For to let them see we had won the day.

If any one then should inquire Or want to know of our captain's name, Oh! Captain Wellfounder, our chief commander,. And the Royal Oak is our ship by name. Mr. Swanton suggests that " possibly the Ad- miralty might be able to reveal who is meant by ' Captain Wellfounder.' "

We congratulate all concerned in the produc- tion of ' Bygone Haslemere,' which contains 40 plates, map, and plans. We are glad to see that it secured nearly four hundred subscribers prior to publication. There is a cheap edition (con- taining 24 plates, map, and plan) at 7s. Qd. net.

Prussianism and Us Destruction. By Norman

Angell. (Heinemann, 1.9.)

THIS is a reprint of Part II. of ' The Great Illu- sion,' to which have been added an Introduction, three new chapters, and an Appendix, intended, these, to show the relevance of the argument to the problems of the present war. Norman Angell has had the courage to leave the matter already published as it stood, with his prophecy that the

E resent generation of Germans would never see a attle. This is candid and well ; but the belief so expressed made, one feels, all the difference

to the tone and tenor of his original reasoning

set him at an angle of view impossible to maintain under the knowledge that furious battles are now actually in progress, and so makes a subtle incoherence throughout the book as a whole in its. present form. At any rate, the emphasis hardly comes out right.

Still, it was worth doing : for the several con- siderations, here put before the reader in the author's undeniably fresh and interesting way,. have in any case much more the value of sugges- tions than of parts in a complete or even an ordered whole, and as such, whether they pro- voke chiefly to agreement or chiefly to dissent, they certainly deserve to be weighed by every thinking person.

THE February Fortnightly Review is of a more than usually sober complexion. The lady who had charge of two young German princes con- tinues her account of what she discovered ' In the House of a German Prince,' and since this instal- ment is chiefly taken up with an account of her first interview with the Kaiser, it arouses some expectations in the reader, and fulfils these too quite as far as such a colloquy could be expected to, and even further. The subtle but strong pres- sure put upon this girl, who is partly American, to ignore her British ancestry is one of the most striking things in the treatment she received. ' A House,' by Helen Mackay, which owes a great deal to recent French poetry (we should conjecture that of Paul Fort), is none the less deeply imagina- tive, and therefore memorable. Mr. S. M. Ellis has a sympathetically written and interesting paper on ' Frank Smedley.' Mr. Archibald Hurd is strongly of opinion that this war will not. end militarism. The determining question lies, perhaps.