Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/95

 n s. vii. feb. i. i9i3.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 87 go to Whitehall ? Surely you will see the behead- ing of the King,' and he let me into Whitehall. Coming into the boarded gallery, 1 met H. Peters and he was in the Gallery, and then I got with H. Peters into the Banqueting House, being there H. Peters met one Tench of Hounsditche that was a joiner. Meeting him he speaks to him and whispers in his ear and told him somewhat, I do not know what it was, but Tench presently after went and knocked four staples upon the scaffold." After the King had been beheaded " there came H. Peter3 in his black coat and broad hat out of that chamber (as I take it) with the hangman to take notes." Tench built the scaffold (one of that name had been executed at Oxford as a spy in 1644). In case the King resisted, ropes were to be inserted in the staple? with which to drag him to the block. Tench was arrested after the Restoration, and probably executed. J. B. Williams. (To be continued.) " As big as a Paignton pudding."— Any one not living at Paignton who is puzzled by the above expression may find an explanation in the pages of The RaUtoat/ Magazine for January in an article on South Devon, from which a brief extract may be permissible :— " Paignton is celebrated for its puddings. There was one in 1809 consisting of 100 lbs. of flour, 240 eggs, 140 lbs. of raisins, and 170 lbs. of suet. It required four days' cooking, and a team of oxen to draw it. " The opening of the South Devon Railway in 1859 was also observed by a pudding. This time there was no boiling,but baking, the pudding being constructed in eight portions and after- wards put together, the total weight being 30 cwt. There were 573 lbs. of flour used, 382 lbs. of raisins, 191 lbs. of currants, 191 lbs. of bread, 382 lbs. of suet, a huge number of eggs, 360 quarts of milk, 320 lemons, 95 lbs. of brown sugar, and 144 nutmegs. The cost ran to nearly 501., and the pudding was drawn by eight horses to the green at Paignton, where a public banquet took place."—P. 48. R. B. Upton. " Laking " = Playing. — The following clippings from The Morninq Post deserve, I think, a longer span of life in 'X. & Q.' In the issue of that journal for 31 D^c. there appeared the following letter from Mr. Eustace Stone :— " I see that Mr. E. B. Osborn, in his delightful article on ' Country Football ' in your issue of December 27, speaks of certain teams who ' buy Scotties to do their footba'-laikin' (larking) for 'em.' Mr. Osborn, as a North Country man, ought to know that ' laking ' and ' larking ' have, etymologically, nothing to do with each other. The late Professor Skeat gives the verb ' to lake ' as a dialect word of Scandinavian origin, meaning ' to play.' It is used in the North of England to-day in this sense, referring to the playing of games, and also is used to mean ' to be out of work,' e.g., ' Our liids came out on strike to-da»y : eh well. Ah shall have to be lakin' while t'strike is over.' " The following interesting comments were made in the Dramatic Column of the issue for 3 Jan. :— " A question has been recently raised as to the meaning of the word ' lake.' It is, of course, a northern word for ' play ' or ' do nothing,' as one does nothing when one takes a day off or is on strike. The word ' laker ' means also player in the sense of actor, though this fact appears to have escaped the marvellous vigilance of Dr. Murray's Dictionary. In the ' Memoirs of Charles Mathews,' compiled by his widow and published by Bentley in 1838, one reads : ' Leeds was at this period (circa 1800) considered little better than the Botany Bay for actors Even the lives of the performers were held in no consideration among a certain portion of the natives, whose estimation of " lakers " seemed to agree with ours in relation to the most insignificant animals created only for our use.' She narrates how actresses dared not cross ' t' brig ' without an escort, and how Mr. Holman, having ' " made up " as Lord Townley in " The Provoked Husband at his lodging, was stopped at " t' brig " in the dusk when travelling in a sedan chair, itself a noveltv and an offence, and, being unearthed, was met with the crv, " A raon wi' his face painted 1 It 's a laker," and the advice to " toss him o'er t' brig," which would have been carried out but for the arrival of friends. As one citizen remarked, " Well, I 'm vexed we didn't topple him into t' water. Where'd been t' harm i' drowning a laker ? " ' Further, a Mi«s Gough was not released till the lads of Leeds had soaked in the Canal a quantity of brown paper and had ' wrapped it round her slight form, till she looked like a mummy.'... .Wakefield was just a« bad. and the ' laker ' was g'ad to reach the kindlier Pontefract and Doncaster." W. F. Prideaux. Crosby Hall : Ceiling op the Council Chamber.—From a letter of Miss Maria Hackett I am able to identify the approxi- mate date of the removal of this ceiling. Writing to Blackburn the architect in April, 1838, she says :— "I hope to see you this afternoon at 5 o'clock, when I have desired Mr. Condre [? Conder, a master carpenter] to be in attendance, as he wishes to consult you respecting the ceiling of the Council Chamber, which he finds to be in a very unsatis- factory state." For a few years prior to 1816, when the lower part of the Hall was utilized for stabling, this apartment was fitted as a horn mill, and no doubt the ceiling was greatly damaged. Cottingham—in whose Architectural Museum the ceiling formed an important exhibit—probably purchased