Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/96

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. m. FEB. 4, 1911.

his ' History of Staffordshire,' published in the reign of Charles II. Plot also says that the place became afterwards famed as the sepulchre of one of the brotherhood. The Spectator, No. 379, for Thursday, 15 May, 1712, has an account of it.

Can any one tell me the exact locality, and is the place still in existence ? C. L. K.

THREAD-PAPERS. (11 S. iii. 8.)

I HAVE a clear recollection of my mother's thread-papers, as one of them found after her death in 1887 was made from an early plan of the Alexandra Palace estate, and, as I have never seen another copy, is now a much-valued item in my local collection.

Thread was bought in skeins, and then cut into pieces of uniform length ; these were passed through flattened tubes made of stout paper to prevent their getting entangled. These flattened tubes were called " thread-papers." GEORGE POTTER.

10, Priestwood Mansions, Highgate, N.

A hank or skein of thread was stitched up by the domestic sempstress in a narrow piece of soft paper, about 9 or 12 inches long, leaving the ends free, for convenience of use, and to keep it from being ravelled or tangled. By the time the thread was finished, the paper, known as a " thread-paper," became pinched up, wrinkled, and ragged by much handling, so that " worn to a thread-paper " was a phrase commonly applied to any person or thing in like condition. I suppose the wooden reel, which I was taught to call a bobbin, has superseded the thread-paper.

W. C. B.

I believe that thread-papers were long strips of paper folded twice longitudinally, in which our grandmothers, or great grand- mothers, kept skeins of thread, so cut that they could draw out a doubled-up needleful at will. I have seen Berlin wools so arranged, and the different shades of one colour arranged in sequence in one bundle of these paper sheaths. When they were merely thread-papers, they would not be very bulky. I remember hearing some tall attenuated women referred to as " thread- papers without the thread." I suppose poor Strephon wished to suggest that the lady of his heart would use the paper on which his verses were inscribed for work-bag purposes

ST. SWITHIN.

The following passage from Sheridan's Rivals ' (1775) proves that the word was not restricted to journalistic use, nor to the early eighteenth century :

Thos Is she rich, hey ?

Fag. Rich ! Why, I believe she owns half the stocks ! Zounds ! Thomas, she could pay the national debt as easily as I could my washer- woman ! She has a lapdog that eats out of gold, she feeds her parrot with small pearls, and all tier Ihread-papers are made of bank-notes !

Act I. sc. i.

So MR. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL'S quotation trom " poor Strephon's " letter is another instance of the usual diffidence evinced by poets in prefaces, introductions, dedications, and accompanying letters. J. F. BENSE.

Arnhem, the Netherlands.

In bygone times threads, wools, and sewing silks were universally sold in skeins. To prevent entanglement, the ladies would take a half sheet of letter-paper note-paper was not used in those days and fold it in four. The skein would be opened, and its two sides put under the outer sides of the paper ; the two middle sides would then be doubled together ; and generally the paper was fastened by a bit of thread being tied about an inch from each end of it. The skein was cut at one end ; and when a needleful was required, it was drawn through the paper from the uncut end.

As old letters were frequently used for the purpose, it is easy to see how one's letter was put among the thread-papers.

S. S. M'DowALL.

[MR. TOM JONES and MB. W. NORMAN also thanked for replies.]

BENJAMIN BATHURST (11 S. iii. 46). The best account of the " disappearance " of this diplomat with which I am acquainted is in the first series of Mr. Baring-Gould's ' Historic Oddities and Strange Events ' (1889). The article originally appeared in The Cornhill Magazine, vol. Iv. p. 279 et seq.

The skeleton described in The Observer is not the first skeleton which has been suggested to be the remains of Bathurst. W. P. COURTNEY.

The Morning Post gave a special account of the finding of the supposed skeleton of Benjamin Bathurst at Perleberg, the first two articles, written by their Berlin corre- spondent, appearing in the issues of 13 and 14 December last, and on the 16th there was a further article entitled ' The Mystery of Perleberg.' The connexion of the paper with the Bathurst family suggests that the