Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/375

Rh held, a thousand horse-packs of cotton and woollen goods were brought thither (Defoe's 'Tour,' vol. iii. p. 121).

Defoe also tells how both salmon and trout were brought from the border country to London by pack-horses travelling night and day, the fish arriving in London "very sweet and good."

Between Sheffield and Stannington a track known as the Hacker Way was, up to a hundred years ago, traversed by pack-mules. These patient beasts carried milk and general farm produce into Sheffield, and they brought back goods from that town for the use of villages en route. At a time within a hundred years every householder in Stannington kept a mule. These animals, when not otherwise used, were sent into Derbyshire to fetch loads of lime, or into Cheshire for salt. Men known as "mule-jaggers" let out on hire mules for the purpose of carrying goods.

"Ye Racker Way" is twice mentioned in, a survey of the Manor of Sheffield made in 1037. "Hack," in this case, signifies the pace of a horse, and is something between a trot and a gallop. It is of uncertain origin. Besides "Ye Racker Way" there is a road in the neighbourhood of Sheffield called Mule-house Lane. A silver mule-shoe was popular as a personal ornament or mascot in the neighbourhood where these mules plied. One such ornament, was dug up recently in Sheffield, and is now in the British Museum. A most interesting paper upon the subject of "Ye Hacker Way," by Mr. T. Walter Hall, may be found in the Transactions of the Hunter Archæological Society, vol. i. No. 1, pp. 63-71, 1914. Mr. Hall has had the kindness to send me a copy, enabling me to add to the materials for this article.

Further details upon the subject will be found in Whitaker's 'Loidis and Elmete,' Marshall's 'Rural Economy of England,' Charles Leigh's 'Natural History of Lancashire and Cheshire,' and Harper's 'Stage-Coach and Mail in Days of Yore.'

(11 S. xi. 230).—The first chapter of Dr. Wilfred Wallace's 'Life of St. Edmund of Canterbury,' London, 1893, contains an account of the literary sources for the saint's life. For the story of the vision of the Holy Child see chap. vi. of the 'Life' ascribed to St. Bertrand of Pontigny in Martène and Durand's 'Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum,' 1717, torn, iii.; fol. ii recto, col.- 2, of the ' Life ' in the St. John's Coll. Camb. MS. C. 12, 9, printed by Wallace in an appendix, and attributed to Robert Bacon ; fol. 124 verso of the Cotton MS. Jul. D. vi. (1), also printed in Wallace and attributed to the Monk Eustace ;. Ranulf Higden, ' Polycronicon,' lib. vii. chap. xxxv., Rolls ed. by J. R. Lumby, vol. viii. i. 218 ; Capgrave, ' Nova Legenda Anglise,' 516, fol. ciiii recto, col. 1. Capgrave's- account is as follows :

' Accidit enim vt cum in prato quodam pxonie vicino spaciendi causa seorsum iret apparuit puer speciosus sic inquiens. Salue dilecte mi Subiunx- itque miror valde quod tibi sum ita incogmtus- presertim cum ad latus tuum in scolis quotidie et alibi comes individuus existam. Respice igitur in. faciem meam quod ibi scriptum videris singulis

noctibus fronti tue imprime "

What he sees written is " Jesus Nazarenus,, rex Judaeorum." A parallel to the * Ring of Venus ' legend is told of St. Edmund in the ' Chromcoii de Lanercost ' and elsewhere: "Puerulus intendens Oxonise gram maticali bus . gloriosae Virginis imaginem, quam ssepe, et una cum tota Universitate, vidimus, clam desponsavit^ imposito digito Virginis aureo annulo, quod multi postea oculis conspexerunt." ' Chron. de Laner- cost,' under A P. MCCXXVIII.. p. 36 in Stevenson's ed,, Maitland Club, Edinb, 1839. According to the story, the Virgin's finger closed on the ring. * EDWARD BENSLY.

ELECTRO-PLATING AND ITS DISCOVERERS (11 S. xi. 297). In his 'History of Old Sheffield Plate ' Mr. Frederick Bradbury does not confirm the facts as given at the above reference, but says :

" With regard to the invention of electro- plating .... so many and simultaneous improve- ments occurring, and so many patents being taken out more or less at the same time, that it is utterly impossible to pick out any one individual and say he alone invented or brought to perfection, the process.

' .Assuredly the conception of the idea in its earliest form must have been the discovery by Dr. Smee, the electrician, of the power of the galvanic battery to collect or disperse the in- visible atoms of pure metal in solution and tx> direct them in close compact over the surface of

metallic preparations Some time in the year-

1840, Dr. Smee gave a practical illustration in ms- own house of his discovery before eighty of the most scientific men in town, when it seems to have been unanimously agreed by those present that the curtain must shortly now be rung down, on the old process of plating by fusion for almost, all commercial purposes."

After noticing what is claimed to be the first electro -plating machine, now in the Chapel of Aston Hall, Birmingham, and made and worked in 1844 by Messrs. Prince & Son, whose factory was visited by Fara- dav and some of his scientific friends on the?