Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/493

 us. xii. DEC. is, 1915. j NOTES AND QUERIES.

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few dozen of oysters instead of nearly two pecks, he should have been disposed to let him go away without payment, but when a man came to his stall and punished such a quantity, the offence could not be overlooked.

" Dando said, that after his imprisonment his appetite was more keen than ever, and that he could not resist the temptation of having a few oysters in passing the complainant's stall, although he had no money to pay for the treat. ' I must have victuals,' said he ; 'it 's all nonsense, and if I have not got the money, \yhy those must suffer who have. There is one thing,' he added, ' and that is, no man can charge me with being either a robber or a housebreaker. I am here at your mercy, and prepared to undergo the punishment that awaits me, whatever it may be ; but I again say, that I must satisfy my hunger.'

" Mr. Swabey said, that the oysterman would have been justified in taking the coat off the prisoner's back for not paying the amount of the oysters he had eaten. As, however, he had not been deprived of his clothes, he might be summoned to the Court of Bequests.

" The oysterman said, that summoning such a fellow would be of no use, and as for depriving him of his coat, or even the whole of the garments he wore, including shirt and all, the lot would not fetch a shilling. ' I should like,' added the oyster- man, ' to give him a good sound thrashing with this cane I hold in my hand : that would in some measure compensate me for the loss of my bread and oysters, and if I thought I should be justified I would carry my wishes into effect before he escaped out of this neighbourhood.'

" The Magistrate. ' I shall discharge the prisoner now, but he must not meet with any obstruction on leaving this office.'

" The prisoner was then told that he might go about his business, the magistrate saying, that one day or another he would get very severely handled by those whom he treated like the oyster- man.

a lecture on ftis conduct, and, naving t

bucket of water, waited at the door until the latter made his appearance, and then threw the contents over him, and afterwards gave him a sound thrashing with a cane, to the infinite amusement of a throng of persons who had assembled out- side, and who were aware of the prisoner's trans- gressions."

Dando died in Clerkenwell Prison, it is alleged of starvation. He furnished the groundwork of a play called ' Dandolo ; or, the Last of the Doges,' an original farce in one act, by Edward Stirling, printed in J. Duncombe's ' British Theatre,' vol. xxxv. This play was produced in 1838 at Norton Folgate Theatre, when Sam Vale played the gormandizing oyster-eater with great spirit. About this same time there were issued many caricatures of the penny plain and twopence coloured kind, the chief topic of which was ' Dando astonishing the Natives.'

As late as 1860 there appeared in the November issue of Blackwood's Magazine an amusing poem upon Dando, the point of

which was to inquire w T hat Dando had done" with himself during those months when. oysters were not in season. The verses end up with :

In Clerkenwell there is a lonely grave That has become " a place of pilgrimage " ; And not " the cockle shell " the pilgrim bears, Bub shell of shapeliest native to be placed In glistening row around that humble sod By row on row thus circled. Nor in vain Shall we to-day have penned these simple lines, .If thus we only may be said to place One other oyster-shell upon that grave.

The reference in the last line is to the fact that Dando's grave was for some years kept covered with oyster-shells.

A. L. HUMPHREYS, 187, Piccadilly, W.

SIB WIIXOUGHBY MAYCOCK calls this individual " John Dando, the Jew," and believes he was a Jew. Personally, I doubt it. The name is against it for one thing ; but that does not much signify. Certain classes of questionable Israelites do favour " a little bit of pig's meat '' ; their partiality for bacon, when away from home, has often been remarked and has puzzled their Christian friends, who know them as very orthodox persons in all other respects. I have heard of them favouring lobster ; but oysters are not one of " the forbidden foods ' r which one Jew in a thousand would hanker after. M. L. R. BBESLAR.

FRED. WITT VAN WASSENAER, HERB VAN ROSANDE, BORN 1658 (1! S. xii. 422). The famous Admiral Opdam, " foggy Opdam "of Lord Dorset's lines, who was blown up with his flagship in the seafight with the Duke- of York on 3 June (O.S.), 1665, left a son,, who died in 1714, a lieutenant-general in the Dutch service and Governor of Hertogen- bosch. Can this, by any chance, be the man of whom W. F. P. is in search ?

EDWARD BENSLY.

Frederik Willem (not Witt), Baron van Wassenaer, Heer (not Herr ; Herr is German) van Rosande, born in 1658, became on 6 Aug., 1677, at the age of 19, a captain in the Prince of Orange's Foot- guards (with the rank as in England cf lieutenant-colonel), and filled later the office of High Bailiff of Hulst and Hulster- Ambacht. He died childless at the Hague in the month of August, 1703, after having married, at Leyden in the month of April, 1683, Maria van Leyden van Leeuwen, a daughter of Dirck, Deputy to the States- General, ambassador in England in 1678 r &c^