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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. m. APRIL L>, ion.

There is an endorsement by Mr. Fox as follows :

I do hereby transferr all my right Title & Interest in y e within Order to M r Ben. Hodgkin or his assigness dated 30 th Nov r, 1699.

CHA : Fox.

Below this is a second, assignment :

I do hereby Transfer All my Right Title arid Interest in this Order unto M r William Knight, Dated the 18 th of December, 1700.

BEN : HODGKIN.

And on 14 October, 1701, Mr. Knight received the full contents of this order, viz., 513Z. 75. Wd.

It would be interesting to know whether the date of the second assignment was before or after, or even at, the unfortunate bankruptcy of Mr. Ben. Hodgkin (ante, p. 213), whose name contains no final s.

JOHN HODGKIN.

The Sir John Sweetapple referred to by MB. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL, ante, p. 3, is doubtless to be identified with the John Sweetapple mentioned in Hilton Price's
 * Handbook of London Bankers,' p. 160.

As regards general references to the name, it may be noted that several Sweetapples figure in Musgrave's ' Obituary,' all dates being of the eighteenth century. A niece

of Bishop Atterbury married one

Sweetapple, a brewer.

WILLIAM MCMUBBAY.

Any consideration of this family ought to include some notice of " Parson Sweet- apple " of Fledborough (sometimes called the Gretna Green of Nottinghamshire), a rector who is reputed to have united in wedlock all couples who journeyed thither and Applied to him for that purpose, in the earlier part of the eighteenth century.

A. STAPLETON.

SIB W. ROMNEY (US. iii. 169, 238). This civic magnate was not Lord Mayor. He died 25 April, 1611 : had he lived his turn for the Mayoralty would have been in the year 1613-14. He was Alderman of Portsoken Ward from 1602 to 1605, and of Bridge Ward from 1605 till his death in 1611. The ' D.N.B.' omits his service for the latter ward, though its duration was longer than that for Portsoken. The ' D.N.B.' also describes him as a " Director " of the East India Company, which is an anachronism. There were no " Directors " of that Company till virtually a century after Romney's death. ALFBED B. BEAVEN.

Leamington.

EAB-PIEBCING (US. iii. 149, 171, 235). When I was a house-surgeon thirty years ago at the Royal National Hospital, Mar- gate, I several times pierced the ears of children suffering from chronic ophthalmic conditions as a remedial measure, doing so by the order of the visiting surgeons. The little operation used to be done, and pro- bably still is, by all vendors of jewellery. In 1895 Dr. Westcott held an inquest on a child who died from blood-poisoning after her ears had been pierced by a pawnbroker in the Hackney Road.

It may be of interest to record that Queen Victoria, when a child, had her ears pierced by a pawnbroker of Kensington, as I was informed many years ago by an old acquaint- ance of the man who claimed to have been the operator. W. BBADBBOOK.

Bletchley, Bucks.

BEATBIX GOBDON=ROBEBT ABBUTHNOT (US. iii. 69, 234). I am much obliged to SUTOCS for his suggestion that Beatrix was a daughter of Robert Gordon of Straloch, but I have James Gordon's ' Scots Affairs, 1637-41,' and there it is said the six daughters married thus :

1. Isobell Urquhart of Craighouse.

2. Margaret Sir Richard Maitland of Pittrichie.

3. Jane(?) Middleton of Johnston.

4. Barbara Menzies of Kinmundy.

5. Anne Bisset of Lessendrum.

6. Mary died in infancy.

Thus I am afraid Beatrix cannot be Robert Gordon's daughter. I am, however, anxious to find out whose daughter she was, and shall be very grateful to any one helping me. CECIL LISTEB KAYE.

Den by Grange, Wakeh'eld.

LITANY : SPITTING AND STAMPING THE FEET (11 S. iii. 148, 217).- Quite within very recent years I have been advised to spit whenever I met an evil smell. I cannot think the advice was founded on super- stition. The advice tendered me was in every case given by English doctors of con- siderable eminence, resident in Egypt, France, Italy, &c.

Further, in the East, and in Italy especi- ally, it is merely an unpleasant method of showing contempt for an adversary. The Cockney, too, shows it to perfection. A Spaniard, to my knowledge, being seriously annoyed, threw his hat on the ground, called on his most cherished saints to nest in it, and, when he was certain they were all there, spat into the hat.

PEBCY ADDLESHAW.