Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/212

 206

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. iv. SEPT. 9, 1911.

Forfarshire, on the Dighty Water, near Monifieth. Two sentences from the remi- niscences contributed by Principal Shairp to make the matter quite clear :
 * Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen '

" After we had returned from our drive, we sat for some time on the lawn just over the Dighty Water, which ran underneath the bank on which the house stands .... With any of his guests at Linlathen who cared for it, Mr. Erskine used to continue his talk, not only in his library and along the corridor, but in walks about the place, or in a longer walk to the bare bleak links of Monifieth, where the outlook was on the eastern sea."

Quoted in Prof. Knight's ' Principal Shairp and his Friends,' p. 220.

THOMAS BAYNE.

COVERHAM HOUSES. Dr. Cox notes in ' Sanctuaries and Sanctuary Seekers,' p. 303, that in 1369,

'* at 9 o'clock on the Saturday before St. Valen- tine's Day, William de Wallan placed himself within the church of Cromwell and tarried there until the following Thursday, when he confessed before the coroner to having stolen a horse worth 100s. from the Abbot of Coverham, Richmond- shire."

Dr. Cox remarks : " This was a great price ; the horse was probably a pacing palfrey."

I do not know how that may have been, but Coverham canons owned a famous breed of white horses, of which traces are still observable in Coverdale and the country adjacent. The monks of Jervaulx had also a celebrated stud. (See Murray's ' Hand- book for Travellers in Yorkshire,' pp. 329, 330.) ST. S WITHIN.

RAILWAY : FIRE-DAMP : EARLY MEN- TION. In the Historic MSS. Commission Report just published on the archives of Lord Middleton at Wollaton, Notts, mention is made on pp. 169-77 of a colliery railway in Nottinghamshire (worked, of course, by horses) in daily use in the reign of Queen Elizabeth for the conveyance of coals to the Trent for shipment to London.

Fire-damp is also spoken of as early as in 1316 ("ventus qui vocatur le dampe," pp.

R. B. Upton.

, [T H T ^S 1 ? 8 * <l uotation for "fire-damp" in the N.L.D is from the Philosophical Trans- actions for 1677. There is a cross-reference to damp, where the first example of " damp " in coal-mines is from Bacon's ' Sylva,' 1626.]

SNAKES DRINKING MILK. To the instances ^ C, or ^ ihe Tenth Series (see x. 265, 316, 335, 377, 418 ; xi. 157, 336) I may add two that have come to my knowledge.

The first happened in Rhodesia a little girl was missed in the afternoons, and at last was found on the roof of her father's house, with a saucer of milk beside her and a most venomous snake lapping it up. The next day the same thing occurred.

In Queensland a boa, or carpet snake, drank each night the milk placed on a table beside the bed for an invalid. The sick person was removed into another room, and watch was kept. The snake came as usual, and while drinking the milk was shot. (Mrs.)E. C. WIENHOLT.

Woodheys, West Park, Eltham.

HIGHGATE ARCHWAY. The following, as quoted by The Observer from its issue of 18 August, 1811, may be of interest :

" On Monday, in honour of the Prince Regent's birth, the foundation stone of the Highgate Archway was laid by Mr. Vazie, engineer of the works, when the workmen were regaled with a plentiful supply of strong beer, brewed for the occasion."

This refers, of course, to the structure demolished fourteen years ago, when the present fine arch was erected by the London County Council. CECIL CLARKE.

Junior Athenaeum Club.

OLDEST BRITISH SOLDIER. The following from The Daily Telegraph of 7 August seems worth a place in ' N. & Q.' :

" The King has been graciously pleased to present a Coronation Medal to A. McNichol, the oldest soldier in the British Army. He joined the 1st Foot Regt., Aug. 2, 1837, at 19 years of age ; he is now 93. He is the oldest pensioner at Chelsea, and served with the oldest regiment of the British Army."

A. F. R.

TAILOR AND POET. Few people can have described themselves legally as poet. I think it therefore worth noting in ' N. & Q.' that Daniel Nelson, born in Tralee, describes himself in his attestation paper as a recruit in Major Boyle Roche's Regiment, 20 Sep- tember, 1775, as " Taylor and Poet " ("Scotland Letters and Papers," P.R.O., Second Series, bundle 45, No. 171).

J. M. BULLOCH. 118, Pall Mall, S.W.

THOMAS WOOLDRIDGE, ALDERMAN OF BRIDGE WARD. (See MR. BEAVEN'S query, US. ii. 27.) Mr. Wooldridge, "once an alderman of London, and possessed of immense property," is mentioned in The London Chronicle for 26-29 Dec., 1789, p. 622, as being then a prisoner for debt at Boston in New England.

DANIEL HIPWEUL.