Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/280

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

Forty years or more ago I knew Dr. Price. In this world we all have our little peculiarities ; in some they are more strongly accentuated than in others ; when they are not our own, we considerately term them eccentricities. A man whom I think I may safely term eccentric was Dr. Price. When I knew him, he was a handsome old man of about 70 years of age, with clean- cut features and a long flowing white beard. He claimed to be a lineal descendant of some ancient Druid ; but his eccentricity did not stop at this ; he actually ventured to play the Druid, and in a costume which, to say the least, was attractive, if not startling. It consisted of trousers of a vividly green -cloth, with a jacket to match, the latter being ornamented with scollops or van- dykes, edged with red. His head was covered by a huge fur cap made from the head of a wolf, to which was attached a portion of the skin and the animal's tail, which hung down his back. To see him parading the streets of London in this attire afforded no little wonder to the crowd of small boys usually found following in his wake.

Price was, I remember, tried for unlaw- fully burning (with Druidical ceremonies ?) the dead body of his infant child upon the top of some Welsh mountain. The late Mr. Justice Stephen, who tried the case, held, however, that the burning of a dead body was not in itself unlawful, and so the doctor was acquitted, and cremation received an impetus from the judge's decision.

T. W. TEMPANY. Richmond, Surrey.

T remember this eccentric man thirty years ago at Eisteddfoddau in Wales to which I used to go as musical adjudicator. He wore the skins of animals, was looked upon as a crank, and was followed in the streets by a rabble of boys. Probably Sir Vincent Evans, Secretary of the Cymm- rodorion Society, Chancery Lane, W.C., knows his story, and can tell your corre- spondent if he really had any message to his time - J. SPENCER CTJRWEN.

If E. H. C. will consult the files of the Car- diff newspapers (Western Mail and South Wales Daily News) for the years 1883-4, he will find in them a great deal of contem- porary information about Dr. Price. He was at that time an old man, but his doings excited much popular interest. I never heard that he had any disciples, and it is not at all likely that his " movement " skived him. A. MORLEY DAVIES.

YVmchmore Hill, Amersham.

Dr. William Price died 23 January, 1893. A good account of him, with many references, will be found in the second volume of Boase's ' Modern Biography.' WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.

HIGHGATE ARCHWAY (11 S. iv. 206, 257). I venture to think that the language used by the reporter has misled MB. CECIL CLARKE in his belief that the paragraph he quotes from The Observer of 1811 refers to the laying of the foundation stone of the actual Archway which was demolished in 1898. The date of the paper, 18 August, 1811, proves this : for a brass plate which was fixed on the Archway, as the present genera- tion knew it, bore an inscription to the effect that the foundation stone was laid by Edward Smith, Esq., on the 31st day of October, 1812. The discrepancy is easily accounted for by a reference to the history of the under- taking.

Mr. Robert Vazie was the engineer to the Highgate Archway Company, and his original proposal, which was accepted (though condemned from the first by Rennie), was to carry the road through a long tunnel under the hill ; and probably the festivities alluded to were to celebrate the commence- ment of the operations for carrying this into effect. On 15 April, 1812, however, when about half finished, the entire works col- lapsed, and the tunnel was completely filled with earth. That scheme was there- upon abandoned and a new one adopted, which resulted in the present Archway Road, with the Archway, the foundation stone of which was laid in that year, over it.

The tunnel scheme was always unpopular, and the accident caused a great sensation in London. It was even represented on the stage in a play called ' The Highgate Tunnel ; or, The Secret Arch.' Some wag also pro- duced a satirical prospectus for removing Highgate Hill entirely, with the houses upon it. It ran as follows :

'' The Highgate Archway having fallen in, it is intended to remove the whole of the hill entire, with the houses, gardens, fields, roads, and footpaths, by a mechanical slide, .constructed so as to remove the whole, including the chapel and burial ground. It is intended to remove the hill into the vale behind Caen Wood, where the seven ponds now are, thereby forming a junction with Hampstead and inviting the ap- proach of the two hamlets in a more social manner. On the spot w r here Highgate now stands it is in- tended to form a large lake of salt water of two miles over or thereabouts, beginning at the north end of Kentish Town, and reaching to the spot where ' The White Lion ' at Finchley now stands."