Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/353

 ii s. vm. NOV. i, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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other. On the one side was a great war lord, with his knights and bowmen ; on the other, citizens and peasants, republicans with arms for hand-to-hand fighting; and in both cases the latter had the victory over the former. Although, he said, '* our historical knowledge of the battles of Mara- thon and Platsea was of little trustworthiness, modern geography and maps gave the most exact pictures of the countries in which the struggles took place."

As regards numbers, Prof. Delbriick said :

" If it was so difficult to move 100,000 men, with the aid available, led by such a man as Moltke all the reports we had received of similar armies in olden times, of the Assyrians, Persians, Gauls Huns, or Germans, were struck out of history. How could Attila have led 700,000 men from Germany over the Rhine into France to the Plain of Chalons, if Moltke moved 500,000 with such difficulty over the same road ? The view of the army movements of 1870 gave a common stand- ard of measure for the movements of armies in far remoter times."

The Professor then described the enormous difficulties which attended the feeding of the army of 200,000 which besieged Metz, and pointed out that " Herodotus stated exactly that 5,100,000 men was the strength of the army of Xerxes."

" Seldom in these 2,500 years had this number been doubted, though, if it were true, one might calculate that, marching through paths often very narrow between the mountains, the last man would only have left Susa beyond the Tigris when the first arrived before Thermopylae. The conclusion he arrived at from geographical and other reasons was that in fact the Greeks were stronger in number than the Persians."

N. I. H.

SUPERSTITION IN THE TWENTIETH CEN- TURY. The following cutting is from The Morning Post of 6 Octobsr :

" To meet the views of superstitious people, the Harrow Council have decided in future to substitute ' 12A ' for ' 13 ' in the numbering of

houses."

It is rather astonishing that the present year is not referred to as 1912A.

ST. SWJTHIN.

THE EARLIEST MENTION OF AN AERIAL POST. In The Rambler Magazine for 1783 there is a caricature plate of two balloons in the air, with people viewing them. One man is saying, " These balloons are to carry the mails." I think this is probably the earliest mention of an aerial post, but it is, of course, possible some one can point to an older one. ARTHUR W. WATERS.

Leamington Spa.

(gmws.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

" TRAPS," in the colloquial sense of " per- sonal effects that the owner takes with him," is known to us only as a nineteenth -century word, apparently at first dialectal. At least it appears in the ' Craven Glossary,' 1828, explained as " small tools or imple- ments, always used in the plural number, equivalent to the classical arma. ' Gang an' sam up thy traps.' ' In John Bull, 1831, 7 Aug. : "No one thought that only three days after, he would be obliged to pack up his traps and be off." It occurs several times in Marryat's ' Peter Simple,' 1833, and gradually gets into respectable prose. J. Ball in ' Naturalist in South America,' 1887, has " to carry some of the traps with which a botanist is usually en- cumbered."

Can any one send us instances dialectal, slang, or literary earlier than 1828 ? Its origin can, of course, only be guessed. Some have thought it short for " trappings " ; others that it may have first been used by trappers or poachers, and may actually be the plural of " trap " (a snare or gin), which came in course of time to be generalized as the ' Craven Glossary ' has it. But no evidence has yet been found.

J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford.

GALIARBUS, DUKE OF ARABIA. The Eliza- bethan Club of Yale University proposes to issue a reprint of the copy of the play of 'Common Conditions' (? 1576) now in its possession. Upon the title-page of this copy, which is believed to be unique, is the statement that the work is " drawne out of the most famous historie of Galiarbus Duke of Arabia." Can any of your readers give me information regarding *Galiarbus ?

C. F. TUCKER BROOKE. Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

ST. ANN AND WELLS. Can any one give the reason why St. Ann, the reputed mother of the Virgin Mary, is traditionally regarded as the patroness of wells, to whom they are dedicated in all parts of England ?

A. SMYTHE PALMER. Hermon Hill, N.E.