Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/226

 216

NOTES AND QUERIES, ui s. xi. MAB. is. i9i&

A fourth quoted Spenser's ' Faerie Queene '

(no reference given) :

Through thick and thin, both over bank and brook,

In hopes her to attain by hook or crook ;

while yet a fifth gave a further quotation from

the same author :

The spoyle of people's evill gotten good,

The which her sire had scrapt by hooke and

crooke. ' F. Q-,' V. ii. 27.

This last writer continued as follows :

" Might not its origin, which does not appear to be satisfactorily accounted for, be traced to the fact that in olden times retainers and others were allowed to take such wood out of their lords' forests as they could gather with the assistance of a hook and a crook ?....' Dynmore Park Wood was ever open and common to the. . . .inhabitants of Bodniin. . . .to bear away upon their backs a burden of lop, crop, hook, crook, and bag wood.' "

I confess that it appears to me that it is in this last quotation that the origin of the phrase may most probably be found. It is of hoary antiquity, it has a taking rime, and it would be universally well known to every- body who wanted firewood, as well as to their superiors, the owners of the forests that supplied them ; and that once granted, all the subsequent applications of the words would follow as a matter of course.

As to Waterford, if there really are such places as Hook Tower and Crook Church, no commander who proposed to attack the town not even the starchiest could possibly refrain from cracking the joke ; and so, too, with Mr. Kobinson's story, the joke would be the very first thing to occur to everybody ; but neither the one joke nor the other can have originated the saying.

ALAN STEWART.

D'OYLEY'S WAREHOUSE, 1855 (11 S. xi. 169). The original house in the Strand known by this name in the eighteenth century was pulled down in or about 1782, as is stated in Thornbury and Walford's ' Haunted London,' p. 108, 'where a reference is given to The Spectator, JS T o. 454. Its successor, which was afterwards known as Xo. 346, Strand, and stood at the east corner of Wellington Street, lasted until 1838, when it was again rebuilt, this time by the well-known James Beazley ; but the old name continued in use until some time between 1848 and 1852, when it finally disappeared from the 'Post Office Directory,' as is mentioned in W r alford"s 'Old and New London,' iii. 112. At that date the name of the proprietors is given as Messrs. A. Walker & Co., the nature of whose business I do not know ; but I feel certain, from my o\vn recollections, that

in 1855, and for many years afterwards,, it was occupied as the publishing office of The Field newspaper, to which later The- Queen and The Law Times were added. This lasted until 1892, in which year it changed hands, and w r as for the third time rebuilt. The new 'building (by Mr. H. O_ Cresswell) was designed to form an extension of the offices of The Morning Post in Welling- ton Street, but it had a very short life, as- everybody knows, having, to make way soon afterwards for the new Aldwych.

As to the old name which heads this reply, it doubtless lingered on for some time after the abolition of the " Warehouse " among^ those who had long known it ; and, in fact> I find it indexed in the 1855 edition of Timbs's ' Curiosities of London,' p. 702. ALAN STEWART.

" WANGLE " (11 S. xi. 65, 115, 135, 178). W. B. S. at the last reference is somewhat near the mark when he says the word is used in the sense of " arranging " matters. I have often used the w r ord in business dis- cussions, but always thought it was a vul- garism. It is not strictly used for arranging things in a straightforward fashion, but only in cases where there may be a small difference of principle which one side or the other is going to override at all costs : "I will ' wangle ' it for you all right.''

M. L. R. B.

There would be no point in Private Brown's phrase if he intended " wangle "" to mean " to shake,"' as anybody could shake a jelly. S. B. C., ante, p. 135, does not appreciate that the word is used in a slang sense.

It occurred again in an evening paper early in February, this time in the narrative of a Cockney 'bus-driver at the front, and with a different meaning. He was driving a motor van containing rations for a small partv of our men. When the van reached its destination the soldiers had left. The corporal in charge decided that it was his duty to find them, so the van proceeded. They attempted to cross a bridge in bad condition, and stuck fast. Then they " wangled " a piece of wood from the bridge for some purpose, and finally crossed. They found the men they were in search of tinder fire in a hamlet. The officer in command swore at the corporal, and then told him to put up his third bar, which I take to mean is the driver's way of saying that he was promoted sergeant on the spot for his bravery.