Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/91

 us. vi. JULY 27, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Hyenson's. Neither at this nor at any other time had the College a Fellow of the name of Swinnerton. Hyenson's brass was discovered a few years back in the crypt under the east end of the present chapel, and is now affixed to the wall of the apse thereof, just to the south of the Communion table. No part of the inscription is now legible. By this time the Fellows of the College were all natives of Cumberland or Westmorland. JOHN R. MAGKATH.

Queen's College, Oxford.

Swiss REGIMENTS IN BBITISH SERVICE: REGIMENT DE MEURON (US. iv. 110, 171 ; v. 491). Further information about this regiment may be gathered from some para- graphs in J. J. Cotton's ' Monumental In- scriptions,' vol. iii. p. 384. He quotes from an article by Lieut. -General Tyrrell in The Madras Mail, 29 Aug., 1896, which was a review of an ' Essai historique sur le Regi- ment suisse de Meuron,' published at Neu- chatel in 1885 by H. Wolf rath & Cie. MB. PENGELLY will find that the regiment was in Ceylon in 1782, and was borrowed by the French allies of the Dutch for the purpose of fighting against the English on the Coromandel Coast. It took part in the French attack on Cuddalore in that year (see ' The Church in Madras,' i. 290). After transfer to the service of the East India Company, the regiment went to Madras, and was quartered at Poonamallee, Arnee, and Vellore in succession. Then, in 1799, it formed part of the Mysore Expe- ditionary Force. After the Mysore War it was quartered first at Seringapatam ; this station was very unhealthy. In conse- quence the regiment was moved to a canton- ment seven miles away, then and now known as French Rocks. From this station it went to England in 1807. In 1812 its services were required in Canada (see ' The Great Company,' by Beckles Willson).

There was a recruitment of Swiss soldiers for the East India Company's service in India in 1751 (see ' The Church in Madras,'
 * 337). FRANK PENNY.

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It may interest MR. PENGELLY and his ' Canadian correspondent MR. McCoRD, K.C., to know that numerous relics of De Meuron ' and his regiment are preserved in the j museum at Neuchatel, his native place, j As originally recruited, the regiment was ' 1,100 strong, and on the roll of officers figured many relatives of the Colonel.

The Neuchatel collection consists of several portraits of De Meuron and some of his officers, uniforms, swords (regimental and Indian), carved cocoanut shells, &c. There are also a pair of tortoiseshell pince- nez, presented to De Meuron by that arch- plotter Pilame Talawa, who was responsible for the massacre of Major Davie's garrison at Kandy in 1803, when only Corporal Barnsley and a Dutch gunner survived out of the Europeans engaged. Davie, Capt. Rumley, and Capt. Humphreys escaped the massacre to die in captivity.

In the adjacent Natural History Museum at Neuchatel are also certain trophies of African and Indian shikar, mostly horns of antelopes and deer, and some sea-shells, presented by De Meuron. The most inter- esting relics have been photographed, and will be dealt with in an illustrated article in the coming Christmas number of The Times of Ceylon, which may be procured towards the close of this year from the London agency of that paper at 27, Mincing Lane, E.G., price Is. 6d. JAMES RYAN.

THE HENRY MAYHEW CENTENARY: ANI- LINE DYES (11 S, v. 145, 256, 317, 433). The discovery of synthetic rubber recently made known by Prof. W. H. Perkin, F.R.S.. calls to mind how nearly, perhaps, Sir William Perkin, father of the Professor, was forestalled in his great discovery of aniline dyes (1858) by the brothers May hew. A couple of years or so previous to the public announcement of the new dyes " mauve and magenta," Gus May hew was " all agog " over a marvellous invention which he and his brother were trying to launch commer- cially nothing less, indeed, than the re- discovery of the process whereby the " real Tyrian purple " had been produced in ancient times. So far as I can remember what I was told (and scarcely understood) as a child, the actual inventor was a French or German chemist. Henry Mayhew was the sympathetic expert who tested the dis- covery scientifically ; Gus the persuasive " hustler " who carried samples (which, I have heard, were very perfect) with the view of interesting an appreciative financier. However, like most of the Mayhew " ven- tures," it would seem to have been short- lived. Sutherland Edwards, who for a few years was almost as a brother to Gus ("Neds" and the "dear child" used to " chum " together), makes no mention of the matter in his ' Recollections.' After all, the time was not as yet ripe ; besides, Henry Mayhew was hardly the one to bring