Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/452

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. XIL DEC. 4, 1915.

of;Cowell's work. Bigmore and Wyman state that Cowell was the only person in England who had an anastatic press, but this is not the case. In Philip De la Motte's ' On the Various Applications of Anastatic Printing and Papyrography ' (London, 1849) it is stated that

" Messrs. Joseph Woods & Co. of Barge Yard Chambers, Bucklersbury, are the patentees of Anastatic Printing in this country, and that Mr. Delamotte of Broad Street, Oxford, who holds a licence under them, is also a skilful performer of this art. Mr. Cowell of Ipswich and Mr. Truscott of Nelson Square, London, are also licensees."

Of Appel, the alleged original inventor, I do not think that much is known, but there is a Patent specification dated 1851 (No. 13,717) which refers to Appel as being then in London, carrying on the business : " Glynn and Appel's specification for so treating paper as to prevent impressions being taken therefrom." The patentees were " Henry Glynn of Bruton Street, Berkeley Square, and Rudolf Appel of Gerrard Street, Soho, anastatic printer." It is possible that, owing to the alarm caused by the invention of anastatic printing, Appel saw his way both to practise the art and to protect by this special patent those who were concerned at the results.

One of the chief uses to which anastatic printing was put was the illustration of the works of local archaeological societies. The early volumes of the following societies' publications were illustrated by means of anastatic pictures : The Norfolk and Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Cheshire, Yorkshire, Somerset, Exeter Architectural, Sussex, Surrey, Leices- tershire, Bucks, Durham and Northumber- land.

Amateurs practised the art, and societies were formed for the purpose of issuing the works of members. An Anastatic Drawing Society, which numbered more than three hundred subscribers, was formed in 1855. The Rev. J. M. Gresley, Etwall Hospital, Derby, was the secretary. Several annual volumes were published. Another society was run by the Rev. G. R. Mackarness, Vicar of Ham, Staffs, and the Rev. W. F. Francis, Rector of Great Saxham, Bury St. Edmunds. In the South Kensington Art Library there is a volume of " Sketches printed at the second Hampstead Conversa- zione, Feb. 18, 1846, in illustration of the Anastatic printing process. London, 1846." The method has also been used in the Ordnance Survey Office at Southampton.

187, Piccadilly, W.

A. L. HUMPHREYS.

DANDO, THE OYSTER-EATER (11 S. xii. 400). This famous oyster-eater is the subject of an amusing and very graphic tale by Thackeray, entitled ' The Professor.' It originally appeared in ' Comic Tales and Sketches,' edited and illustrated by Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh, 1841, and is re- printed in ' Miscellaneous Essays, Sketches, and Reviews,' forming vol. xxv. of Thackeray's works in twenty-six volumes, Smith, Elder & Co., 1899.

After a debauch in the fish-shop of Mr. Grampus " at the Mermaid in Cheapside," the oyster-eater calls for the bill, in which figures "11 Doz. Best Natifs, 7s. 4d," the whole amount of the bill being II. 5s. 9cf.

" Grampus, shaking in every joint, held out the bill : a horrid thought crossed him ; he had seen that face before !

" The Professor kicked sneeringly into the air the idle piece of paper, and swung his legs recklessly to and fro. ' What a flat you are,' shouted he hi a voice of thunder, ' to think I 'm a - goin' to pay ! Pay ! I never pay I 'M DANDO ! "

The scene is illustrated by one of Thacke- ray's sketches. WM. H. PEET.

Shortly after his return in 1842 from his first visit to America, Charles Dickens wrote to his friend Cornelius C. Felton, Professor of Greek at the Cambridge University in Massachusetts, whom in one of his letters to John Forster he described as a most delightful fellow, unaffected, hearty, genial, and jolly, and who, there are grounds for assuming, had a partiality for oysters himself. An extract from this letter will supply the information sought by MR. GWYTHER :

" Of all the monstrous and incalculable amount of occupation that ever beset one unfortunate man, mine has been the most stupendous since I came home Wherefore I indite a mon- strously short and wildly uninteresting epistle to the American Dando ; but perhaps you don t know who Dando was. He was an oyster-eater, my dear Felton. He used to go into oyster-shops, without a farthing of money, and stand at the counter eating natives until the man who opened them grew pale, cast down his knife, staggered backward, struck his white forehead with his open hand, and cried ' You are Dando ! ' He has been known to eat twenty dozen at one sitting, and would have eaten forty if the truth had not flashed upon the shopkeeper. For these *offenccs he was constantly committed to the House of Correction. During his last imprisonment he was taken ill, got worse and worse, and at last began knocking violent knocks at death's door. The doctor stood beside his bed with his fingers on his pulse. ' He is going,' says the doctor ; ' see it in his eye 1 ' There is only one thing that would keep life in him for another hour, and that is oysters. They were immediately brought. Dando swallowed eight, and feebly took a ninth. He held it in his mouth and looked