Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/177

 ii s. ix. FEB. 28, 1914.] NOTES AND QUERIES

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veil on the top of the head and a grey bow on one side ; the lady is in black, with a small white frill and a white muslin cuff, and the background is dark.

An expert informs me that it was probably painted after Lawrence had been studying the Vandykes at Genoa. As the portrait is signed which, I understand, is rare in the case of Lawrence and as it differs from much of his other work, the suggestion seems plausible, and it would make the date of the painting of the picture about 1820. As it is the portrait of a remarkable and interesting person, I should be very glad if any light could be thrown on the lady.

W. E. DARWIN.

11, Egerton Place, 8.W.

THE CENTUM VIRATE CLUB. William Ac- ton, by his will made in 1781, left all his rights and interest in the " Contumvirate Society, now held at the King's Head Tavern, Poultry," to his son. The o in the first syllable is evidently a clerical error, and the right word " Centum virate," which is used by Sterne in ' Tristram Shandy,' in the sense of a body of one hundred persons.

Can anything be told of such a Club or Society, of which I have failed to find men- tion anywhere else, but which was appa- rently of some importance, as constituting a tangible property deserving of separate notice in a testator's will ? W. B. H.

"WIDOWS' MEN." (US. ix. 28, 136.)

THE subjoined, I trust, will answer satis- factorily the queries now appearing in 'N. & Q.' regarding "the widow's man" and " dead clothes."

The second order copied, relating to fictitious men, refers to the widows of sea officers ; it is not generally known that they had a right to a like benefit with the widows of seamen.

Adm. Navy Board, 2077. Abstracts of Letters from the Admiralty.

[To the] Lords. 1751. 17 July. Widows Man. Inclosing a Copy of the Order given to the Capt s of his Maj' Ships for bearing on their Books, so many fictitious Names of Seamen as two in every 100 Men of their Complement shall amount to According to a late Act of Parliament for allowing thereof when the N of Seamen to be employed do not exceed 20,000

And directing that able ISeamans Wages be Reserved in the Trea'rs Hands on the payment of the Ships for the use of the Widows.

Adm. Navy Board, 2081. Abstracts of Letters from the Admiralty.

[To] M r Stephens. 1765. 20 February. Fictitious Men. Inclosing a Copy of an order they have given to the Capt m of his Maj 8 Ships & Vessels forbearing two to every hundred of the Ships Comp y tor the benefits of Sea Officers Widows, pursuant to an Act of the 24 th of his late Majesty the same to commence from 20 July last for our causing the produce of the said Men's Wages & Victuals to be reserved for the said Widows accordingly.

Adm. Navy Board, N 1334. (In-letters.)

Norge, Sheerness, 24 th Aug 9t 1815. GENTLEMEN,

The Pursers Steward of the Norge, having died on the passage from the West Indies, and, not find- ing any purchaser for some Bank Notes & some small coin, part of the deceased effects.

I am to request you will have the goodness to give directions what I am to do with these Bank Notes and small Coin, and, if I am to send them to London, by what conveyance, so, that no respon- sibility may rest with me, in the event of any accident happening.

I have the Honor to be Gentlemen Y r Most Obed* Hble Serv*

CH: DASHWOOD The Commissioners of Captain.

H.M. Navy London. [Endorsed;] 24 Aug' 1815 Capt n Dashwood

Norge

Property of a Dead Man.

M r Daysh. The most regular way would be for Capt" Dashwood to take the money herein alluded to himself and charge the value thereof against himself on the muster books of the Norge as the effects of the person to whom it belonged, and to make out a bill at the back of the mans Ticket of the particulars as is done in the Sale of Dead Clothes, to enable the representative of the person referred to, to receive the amount thereof. 31 August 15

2 Sep* desire the Capt n to do so.

E. H. FAIRBROTHER.

ADJECTIVES FROM FRENCH PLACE-NAMES (11 S. ix. 21, 94). I have been much interested by SICLLE'S article. Les Annales gave a fairly full list of these some years ago. The only doubt I feel about SICILE'S list is in regard to the adjective of Tourco- ing, which I have always seen as tourquen- nois, and not " turquennois," and it is given thus in the latest edition of Cassell's ' French-English Dictionary. ' Other curious forms are palais (of Pau), lexovien (of Lisieux), malouin (of St. Malo), blesois (of Blois), audomarois (of St. Omer), montilien (of Montelimar), musipontain (of Pont-a- Mousson), spinalien (of Epinal), and castro- theodoricien (of Chateau-Thierry). But I have never found the adjectives of Carcas- sonne, Castelnaudary, or La Ferte-sous- Jouarre. DE V. PAYEN-PAYNE.