Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/31

 n s. in. JAN. 14, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

be done by night, as well as by day, provided that the air be not charged with a low cloudy atmosphere, or any other dark vapour.

Although the operation is performed in public, advice is communicated with the greatest secrecy, as it can neither be heard nor understood but by the persons who assist at the machines. Nay, if he who sends or receives the advice is desirous to conceal it, even from these persons, there is a method of doing it freely.

In tine, this operation is performed with great expedition ; for, in a quarter of an hour may be communicated a period, containing about two huadred letters. Add to this, that the machine situated at the place A not only communicates advice to the other at the place B, but does not attempt it before being certain of being heard at B.

Although so apparently precise, this description sadly lacks detail concerning the apparatus employed. Can that detail be found elsewhere ? ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

SIR JOHN CHANDOS. In ' The Life of the Black Prince, by the Herald of Sir John Chandos,' recently edited by Miss Mildred K. Pope and Miss Eleanor C. Lodge of Oxford University, and published at the Clarendon Press (1910), it is stated in the 'Index of Proper Names,' p. 242, that Sir John Chandos was " son of Thomas Chandos, Sheriff of Herefordshire." This is an error the repetition of which in this important edition of the Chandos Herald's poem in- creases the need for its correction.

The great Sir John Chandos, a knight- founder of the Order of the Garter, Viscount of St. Sauveur in Normandy, Constable of Aquitaine, and Seneschal of Poitou, was son and heir of Sir Edward Chandos, a dis- tinguished Derbyshire knight. Sir Edward, who received rewards for his service in the war with Scotland and for other services in the early reign of Edward III., was a constant friend and companion of that king.

Sir John's parentage is correctly stated in his life in the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' which expressly cautions the reader against the above error, and that authority is, moreover, referred to on p. 242 mentioned above. M. Fillon, who is also there cited as an authority, and some other writers had earlier made the mistake of confusing this Sir John Chandos, the last of the knightly house of Chandos of Derbyshire, with another Sir John Chandos, son of the above Sir Thomas Chandos, and last of the male line of the baronial house of Chandos of Herefordshire and Shropshire. The latter Sir John died within the years 1428-30 (the ' D.N.B.' says 10 Dec., 1428) without issue, some sixty years after the

death of his renowned kinsman, his sister's descendants becoming, in the eighteenth century, Dukes of Chandos.

The knightly family of Chandos of Derby- shire, sprung from the baronial house, and seated in the county of Derby for five generations, is now represented by Chandos- Pole of Radbourne, through the marriage in the reign of Richard II. of Peter de la Pole and Elizabeth, niece and eventual sole heiress of Sir John Chandos of Radbourne r the famous warrior. The above Sir Thomas Chandos was in the King's division at Crecy, while his contemporary Sir John Chandos of the Derbyshire branch of the family was in attendance upon, and fighting beside, the youthful Prince of Wales, then only sixteen years old. R. E. E. CHAMBERS.

Pill House, Bishop's Tawton, Barnstaple.

JAMES FORSYTE. The article in the 'D.N.B.' on this Indian traveller needs some corrections.

Capt. Forsyth joined the Bengal Army (not the Civil Service) in February, 1857, after receiving a university education not in England, but in Scotland. After some years of military service he was appointed Assistant Conservator, and acting Conser- vator of Forests in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories. He was subsequently trans- ferred to the Central Provinces Commission, and after a time was nominated Settlement Officer, and then Deputy Commissioner of Nimar. He joined the Bengal Staff Corps in 1861, and was promoted to the rank of captain 20 February, 1869. His book ' The Highlands of Central India ' contained accounts of some, but by no means all, of his travels and explorations in the Central Provinces. R. E. B.

" ELZE "= ALREADY. ' Glints o' Glen- gonnar,' by Christina Fraser, recently pub- lished, consists of a series of sketches illustrat- ing the life of dwellers in a remote district of Upper Clydesdale. The writer manifestly knows her people well, and perhaps the most fully presented character in her group is " Easie," the local shopkeeper, an incomer who has permanently retained certain impres- sions received in her native parish. Among these is the use of some words which are un- familiar to her youthful auditors :

" Easie had twae words she used often, ' elze * and ' efterhin.' Jf a baker or cadger had come suner than she expected, she wad say, ' Is that you, elze ? I didna think it was that time o' day ' ; or, if we had been sent an erran' an' cam' back quick, she wad say, * Are ye back, elze ? Juist rin like a whittret/ If it was something she wad do later, she wad say'she wad do't efterhin."