Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/475

 ii s. in. JUNE 17, MIL] NOTES AND QU ERIES.

469

year 1688 a widow named Anne Scales who had a son Aaron Scales. There is no evidence as to what was his age at the time the memorandum was made. I am in- formed that Scales, a i-on of Job Scales,

was baptized at Scrooby on 3 March, 1704. The Christian name has been omitted or effaced.

In Ely the churchyard in 1854 there were several stones in memory of members of th Scales family. Nearly all had been more or less mutilated. Whether they are still in existence I do not know. According to the testimony of one of them, Elizabeth, wife of Aaron Scales, died on 18 November, 1772 ; and her husband Aaron, it seems, passed away soon after, but the date is not perfect : his age was 71. Though they were buried in Blythe churchyard, several of them lived at Ranskill. Ann Scales, daughter of Aaron and Elizabeth Scales of Ranskill, must have been buried at Blythe. She died 18 September, 1805, at the age of 81. Martha Nelson too* who had a like paternity, died 24 August, 1808, aged 82. Elizabeth, wife of William Scales, late of Ranskill, died 16 March, 1820, aged 78.

N. M. & A.

JACK KETCH. When did the custom close of choosing the public hangman from the ranks of convicted criminals ? The following instance occurs in The Whitehall Evening Post of 8 May, 1756 :

" The Fellow we mentioned some Time since to have stolen two Pigs, and was thereupon sent to Salisbury Gaol, has since been tried and found guilty. He was reprieved, on Condition he would turn Hangman, which Post he joyfully accepted of, and has had some business in his new Profession, and executed it with Decency and Dexterity for so young a Beginner."

J. HOLD EN MACMlCHAEL.

TWINS AND SECOND SIGHT. Is there any precedent for the following curious happen- ing, the facts of which are known to me to be true ?

A gentleman living in London with his wife and a daughter had a new parlourmaid, a girl from the country. She waited at dinner on the night of her arrival, and the next motning said to her mistress : " Please, m'rn, isn't Miss Elsie a twin ? " " Yes, she was," replied the lady, " but she lost her twin brother sixteen years ago, when she was a baby. How did you know ? " " I 'm a twin myself, m'm, and I always have a feeling, which I can't explain, when I'm in the room with any one who is a twin."

The mistress thought this sufficiently

I curious to warrant her making an experi-

j ment, so ten days later she gave a little

i dinner to which she invited a man who had

a twin brother. The man came, and the

maid duly waited upon him. Next morning

she said unprompted : "I know Mr. Smith

was a twin too, I felt it in my bones."

Are twins more prone to second sight than other folk ? FRANK SCHLOESSER.

MOORE OF BANKHALL AND LIVERPOOL. The baronetcy conferred in 1675 became extinct in 1810, on the death of Sir William Moore. See * The Complete Baronetage,' which does not give his wife's name. Else- where she is stated to have been " Miss Morris of Sleaford." Are there any male descendants of this ancient family ? Sir William had an uncle Cleave Moore and an uncle Thomas Moore, and some of the seventeenth-century owners of Bankhall had large families of sons, so probably there are collaterals alive. R. S. B.

CAPT. T. DRURY. I shall be very glad if any reader can give me information that will identify Capt. Thomas Drury alias Poignard with the printed pedigrees of the Drury family. He is mentioned in Blome- field's ' History of Norfolk ' as doing great deeds during Ket's rebellion, and is said to have died of the plague at Newhaven during the siege of that town in 1563. His will was proved in that year at Canterbury. The entry in the printed list is as follows :

" 1563. Thos. Drury alias Ponyerd. West- minster, Norwich, Norfolk. Died at Newhaven." CHARLES DRURY.

12. Ranmoor Cliffe Road, Sheffield.

CHRISTOPHER STAFFORD, Rector of Bothal, Northumberland, 1691-1730, may probably be identified with Christopher, son of Robert Stafford of Yorks, admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge, 23 May, 1684, aged 16, M.A. 1691, in which year he was ordained deacon at Lincoln and licensed to God- manchester. He married before 1703 a certain Dorothy, whose surname and family are not known. Can any readers of ' N. & Q.' supply information to prove the marriage, or give further biographical details ?

G. G. BAKER CRESSWELL.

Barndale, Alnwick.

JOSEPH PAUL, SURGEON. --He died March, 1763, having been surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital. Information concern- ing his parentage, career, &c., would be much appreciated. F. K. P.