Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/57

 us. ix. JAN. i7,i9H.3 NOTES AND QUERIES.

Some years since, on the spellings then known, Prof. Skeat pronounced the meaning to be " the Combe of the Sons of Alfred," and said that if the place had been Alfred's Combe it would have been " ^Elf redes combe," and the s would have remained.

May I ask those who are acquainted with the natural mutations of letters whether the presence of the s in the first instance I have quoted, coupled with the marked change of initial in the beginning of the fourteenth century, does not supply the evidence, lacking when Prof. Skeat wrote, that the original meaning was, indeed, " Alfred's Combe " ?

While writing, may I ask your corre- spondent PEREGRINUS to furnish the date of the document to which he refers on p. 484 of the last volume respecting this place ? W. S. B. H.

COFFIN-SHAPED CHAPELS. In The Baptist Times of the 2nd inst. an extract is given from Mr. Fison's account of the Strict Baptist churches in Suffolk. Two he visited, " both large structures, are built in the shape of coffins a weird sight." One chapel was so full that he could not get in, and had to sit on a form before the open door.

Are any other chapels known of such a gruesome shape ? J. Z.

YORK HOUSE, WHITEHALL. The Illus- trated London News of 23 Jan., 1847, pro- vided an illustration and brief notice of a building on the site of the then new Treasury Office. It is identified as York House, and the writer adds :

"Yet few of those who gazed listlessly at its buttresses and Gothic doorway, enriched with battlements and carving, would have imagined that they were gazing on the last relic of the

all great Cardinal Wolsey.

As this was probably written by Godwin, Thorns, or Timbs, there was some foundation for the attribution, but I shall be glad to learn what is known about the identification of this building and its survival from the fire of 1698. ALECK ABRAHAMS.

CHURCH PLATE, ST. ANDREW'S, DROIT- WICH. I observe that in the Guide to this church by Mr. P. J. Pond, the Mayor of Droitwich, it is stated that a large Eliza- bethan cup of 1571 was " exchanged ' about 1890 for the present plated chalice. Can any reader give me the history of this transaction and the fate of the cup of 1571 ?

W. H. QUARRELL.

princely house called ^ork Palace, built by the "

THE SABBATH IN ABYSSINIA. Can any reader inform me whether the Biblical Sabbath (Friday evening to Saturday even- ing) is still kept by the people of Abyssinia ? Dean Stanley tells us, in his ' History of the Eastern Church,' that

there alone the Jewish Sabbath is still observed, as well as the Christian Sunday. They (with the exception of a small sect of the Seventh-day Bap- tists) are the only true Sabbatarians in Christen- dom."

How can I get into communication with the Abuna ? A. G. MARKS

24, Hewlitt Road, Old Ford, E.

BURR STREET. Can any one give the origin of this name ? The street extends from Lower East Smithfield (recently renamed St. Katharine Way) to Nightingale Lane.

T. S.

SWEDISH AMBASSADOR. Who was Swedish Ambassador in London from 1764 to 1770 ?

C. W. S.

JUpites.

HUMOROUS STORIES: W. R, HICKS AND R. S. DONNALL'S TRIAL.

(10 S. ii. 188, 231, 355 ; 11 S. viii. 449.)

THE trial of Robert Sawle Domiall took place in March, 1817, at Bodmin, when Hicks was about ten years old, as stated by W. B. H. The ' Tales of Devon ' says that Hicks' s talk with the foreman of the jury took place " some year or so after." May not the talk have taken place when Hicks was a young or middle-aged man ? We do not know when Hicks first told the story. This is one of his stock stories which he certainly told throughout the later part of his life. I knew him well, and heard him first tell the story years before he died in 1868. Whatever the date was, it is possible that he did at some time have some conversation with the foreman of the jury, and that he then, in consequence of what the foreman told him about the case, invented this admirable, witty, and humor- ous story. It is qiiite clear that the account of what passed when the jury were locked up is a pure fiction. This, it must be borne in mind, was a trial for murder, and no one can believe that one of the jury said :

"I be for shuteing of it op. If a hath a-mit wi' a misfortune with the old woman, I knaw by two he hath a-zaved from drowning ; and if you draw one agin the t' other, I b' ant for Imnging of un."