Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/196

 188 NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. vn. MAR. s, 1913. WE must request correspondents desirinR in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct. WHERE SHALL THE COLLEGE OF ARMS OF CANADA GO ? McGiLL UNIVERSITY, Montreal, has been giving the collection of the College of Arms of Canada a room in the Library Building of the University for temporary occupancy ; but now, owing to the growth of the Uni- versity, the room is needed, and the library and collection of the College of Arms of Canada will soon be without a home. This collection consists of the arms and history of the Seigneurs of Canada; of the Baronets of Nova Scotia; of the Bannerets of Quebec ; of the Lords of Manours established under the Stuart kings in the old provinces of Maryland, New York, and Carolina; of the Colonial (armigerous) gentry of the same epoch; of the officers and their pedi- grees of the Burgesses of the Colonies, &c. The College was established for the registry of the Noblesse under the French regime in Canada, and guaranteed by George III. in the Treaty of Cession of Canada in 1763, and again in the Canada Act of 1774, which protects the ancient customs (feudal and heraldic) of the province. It is controlled, under the hereditary chancellorship of the Baron de Longuenil (premier Baron of Canada), by the Seigneurial Court of the Noblesse registered in the College, who appoint, through the Herald-Marshal, four commissioners. In the College are registered also those Jacobite titles and officers of the Stuart adherents who were recognized by the French kings, and commanded to be recognized in Canada under the French regime. The management of the College desires that the collection and office of the Herald-Marshal be moved to the British Isles, and takes this means of inquiring through ' N. & Q.' if there be not some institution that might give a room for this collection, so that the arms and history of the patrician founders of the " Empire beyond the Sea " may bo properly preserved for the uses of future generations. Address at the earliest— VICOMTE DE FHONSAC, Herald-Marshal. MoGill University, Montreal. " TOOL-MAKING."—" Man is a tool-making animal " has been stated to be a saying of Benjamin Franklin. I shall be obliged to any one who will let me know in which of his writings it occurs, with as exact a reference as possible. " TORTHWYDIE."—In the ' Richmondshire Wills and Inventories ' (vol. xxvi. of Surtees Soc. series, p. 169) we have the inventory of Matthew Dixon, 18 Nov., 1563, containing inter alia " A sucke, a cowter, foure yoikes for oxen, a forthwydie, a tugwydie, ij par of torthwydies, and a iren dugge, vj*. viijd." Can any Yorkshireman explain what part of the ox-plough the forthwydie and torth- wydies were ? Wydie was, of course, the Scotch widdie, or withy—according to Jamie- son, " Primarily, a rope made of twigs of willow or birch; and hence a halter." Compare Judges xvi. 7, " If they bind me with seven green withes that were never dried." " TOUCH."—What is the meaning or origin of touch in touchwood, touch-box, touch-hole, touch-powder ? What has touch to do with the notion of ready ignition ? " IN TOUCH WITH."—This phrase, with the related " out of touch with," " to keep [or lose] touch with," &c., seems to be very modern. In the materials collected for the ' New English Dictionary ' it appears first in 1884, and becomes all at once immensely run upon, as if it had been then used by somebody of note, and had " caught on." It may, of course, appear earlier ; but con- sidering that our readers have sent in twenty quotations between 1884 and 1889, and not one before 1884, it cannot have been very common. Any earlier examples will be useful. But please remember that what is wanted is these phrases, and not merely examples of the sb. touch, which has been in use from French since the twelfth century. J. A. H. MURRAY. Oxford. DOUBLE FLOWERS IK JAPAN.—I should be glad to know whether the Japanese, with their extraordinarily refined perception of the beauty of flowers, havo any particular feeling for or against the cultivation of double flowers. I cannot remember notes on this in any account of Japan I have come across. If public taste there approves of double flowers, I should like to know what genera are so cultivated. Are there, for example, in Japan any popular flowers corresponding to our double daffodils or to our double hawthorns T PEREGHINUS.