Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/522

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. vi. NOV. so, 1912.

THE TERMINAL "AC." Can any one give me the meaning or derivation of the terminal ac, found in place-names and family names in France, such as Paulliac, Carnac, de Brissac, Cavagniac, &c. ?

J. H. RIVETT-CARNAC.

' Music A PROIBITA.' I recently heard on a phonograph at a friend's house a very lovely piece of music called ' Musica Pro- ibita,' composed by Gastaldon. Can any one enlighten me as to the history of this piece of music, and the origin of its strange title ? E. G. YOUNGER, M.D.

GENERAL, BEATSON AND THE ' CRIMEAN WAR. Can any of your readers remember General Beatson, of the Bashi Bazooks ? Any information about him or his daughters will be thankfully received by

IDA ROBERTS.

Elmstone Vicarage, Cheltenham.

HUMAN SOULS INTERCHANGED. The fol- lowing legend, formerly told about Chogenji, an old Buddhist temple in the Japanese province of Ise, is given in Terashima's encyclopaedia ' Wakan Sansai Dzue,' 1713, torn. Ixxi. :

" Once in olden time it happened that two men mutually quite unknown one a native of this locality and the other a passing traveller from the remote province Hiuga betook themselves into this building to shelter from the burning noonday sun. In the pleasantly cool verandah they were soon seized with such a sound sleep that they did not stir until the evening, when a man came in and awakened them all of a sudden, which gave them both an extraordinary shock, making each one's soul mistake its own route and so enter the other's body. On hi* return home, each one's family would not receive him, because, though there appeared no change in his figure and face, hi* mind and voice proved him anutter alien. Eventually they hit upon the cause of this confusion. Again both resorted to and slept in this temple, whereby their souls were successfully restored to their proper bodies."

The sentence in italics testifies to the old Japanese having held a strange belief that sometimes the human body could act of its own accord, and quite independently of nay, even against the cerebral command, in order to attain its predetermined goal.

The ' Kii Zoku Fudoki,' c. 1830, torn. Ixxxv., contains an allied story, which runs thus :

" A villagerof Nodake named Yashichiro wasabout seventy years of age during the period Gembun (1/36-40). One day he swooned away in a tit of sickness. When he was resuscitated by calling, he became possessed of an entirely different speech and mien, without any cognizance of his wife and sons, and only able to talk the sawyer's cant [which contains many a provincialism of Oomi and is incomprehensible to all other folks]. Shortly

before, a sawyer died in the mountains of this vicinity ; his personal name was the same as the septuagenarian's we are speaking of ; hence it was generally opined that the sawyer's soul, not yet disintegrated after death, was thus unintentionally brought back into the body of the homonymous old man. This aberrant reviver is said to have died the consummate death ten and odd years after the amazing event."

I am much desirous of learning whether there is any such instance in European records. KUMAGUSU MINAKATA.

Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

SECRET SERVICE. (11 S. vi. 370.)

SOME light is, I think, thrown on two of the three entries in the Overseers' Accounts of Walton-on-the-Hill by nine articles of ab- sorbing interest contributed not long since to The Warwick Advertiser by Mr. Joseph Ashby entitled ' A Century of Village History ' (that of Tysoe, Warwickshire), from 1727 to 1827. In the Tysoe Overseers' Accounts for 1780 appears the following :

" To the Overseers of the poor of the Parish of Chilvers Coton money yt they allowed to George Wilson, a substitute on the body of the militia, for Thos: Kinnian yt was drawed from our Parish of Tysoe, yt was allowed by ye Justices, paid to Lady Day last, 21. 8s." In another case a substitute was found at home :

" To Ninion Nichols at Mr. Trevors, half the money that he paid to his substitute, that served him in the militia, when sworn, 51."

In 1781 the Tysoe Overseers paid to the Overseers of Bulkington 11Z. 15s. 6d., and 4Z. 8s. 6rf. to the Overseers of Nuneaton. During 1782 30Z. 3s. was paid to various parishes for the same purpose; in 1794 201. 7s., and in 1795 14Z. 13s. 6e7. In the latter year there is an entry :

"To a man yt was hired for the Navy and expenses looking after him, and more expenses when we took him and swear him in, 231. 11 a. 3d."

A guess rarely affords a satisfactory solu- tion of a difficulty, but may not the second entry in the Walton accounts have been intended to read : " Paid for bread given to the poor in the form of money " ?

Mr. Ashby shows, by quotation from the Tysoe accounts, that the village baker is less modern than is sometimes supposed, for about 1735 the overseers were paying the village baker for bread, while later the overseers became owners of cottages for the