Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/200

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NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. iv. SEPT. 2, 1911.

mentioned above, that it was announced at Toulon that " un infirrnier du cinquieme depot de la flotte a ete pri6 de preparer deux bandeaux en toile de fil, de pansement double."

Military executions, though rare in France, are not unfrequent in Algeria, where they are sometimes carried out as the penalty of offences much less serious than murder. Last year a soldier would have been shot at Vincennes for an atrocious assassination, but for the humanitarian scruples of M. Fallieres, the President. Two privates in garrison at Melun entered a train with the deliberate purpose, as they confessed, of murdering a passenger for the sake of robbery. They invaded a first-class corridor carriage and kicked to death an aged lady, throwing her body on the line after taking her rings and her money. The military authorities claimed them for trial. The court-martial sent one, with inexplicable leniency, to penal servitude, and ordered the other to be shot. M. Fallieres, to the consternation of railway travellers, commuted this sentence on the ground that the system of universal military service might be rendered unpopu- lar if the parents of young men serving under the colours thought that their sons might be called upon to act as executioners. The case at Toulon shows that reluctance to act in that capacity (which, according to your correspondents, gave rise to the practice of half of the rifles being loaded with blank) has no existence in the French armees de terre et mer. J. E. C. BODLEY.

DEEDS AND ABSTRACTS OF TITLE : SOCIETY FOB THEIR PRESERVATION (11 S. iv. 148). Old parchment deeds, drafts of deeds, abstracts of title, abstracts of wills, &c., which are apt to accumulate in solicitors' offices, are received by the Society of Genea- logists of London, either for safe-keeping or as free gifts. There is virtually no reser vation as to date, but it is suggested that anything of the kind more than, say, fifty years old, might very suitably be deposited with the Society, rather than be kept use- lessly cumbering a modern business office.

The Society prefers to have them given without reservation, so that each docu- ment may be sorted into the general collec- tion at once, under the principal place to which it relates. By a special clause in its memorandum of association, however, the Society is empowered to form and carry on " a permanent or temporary safe depo- sitory for. . . .manuscripts," and to make indexes to them.

Communications on the subject may be addressed to the Secretary of the Committee on the Library (Documents), or to myself.

GEORGE SHERWOOD, Hon. Sec., The Society of Genealogists of London. 227, Strand, W.C.

I do not know of any Society which exists solely for the purpose of preserving old deeds, but I feel sure any local Society would be pleased to take charge of deeds relating to its locality. Public libraries collect deeds ; here at Exeter we have several hundred deeds, and we should be pleased to take charge of any relating to Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, and Somerset on the terms mentioned. For genealogical purposes old deeds are of considerable value, and it is a great pity that so many have been destroyed. Whenever possible, I rescue them from the pulp mill or the toy- drum maker, which is their usual destina- tion. I think 1837 should be the boundary mark. H. TAPLEY-SOPER,

Exeter City Librarian and Hon. Sec., Devon and Cornwall Record Soc.

DEER-LEAPS (11 S. iv. 89, 138, 156). Indications of the deer-leap are still visible on the old boundary of Kidsley Park in the parish of Smalley, Derbyshire (' History and Antiquities of Smalley,' additional volume, by the late Rev. Charles Kerry, p. 43).

The division between Denby Park and Salterwood, Derbyshire, in the early seven- teenth century, was a pale, a great border, and a double ditch. So described in evidence in an action as to the ownership about 1671 or 1672. R. J. BURTON.

Wordsworth's ' Hart-leap Well ' may be added to the instances already chronicled. According to the legend, instinct had im- pelled the hunted deer towards the little spring on the mountain side, where the hunter found it dead with its nostrils at the water :

And climbing up the hill (it was at least Four roods of sheer ascent) Sir Walter found Three several hoof-marks which the hunted

Beast

Had left imprinted on the grassy ground. Sir Walter wiped his face, and cried, " Till now Such sight was never seen by human eyes: Three leaps have borne him from this lofty brow Down to the very fountain where he lies."

The scene of the poem, about five miles from Richmond, Yorkshire, is distinguished by three pillars, " which monuments," says the poet in his introductory note, do now exist as I have described them." THOMAS BAYNE.