Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/303

 12 8. 1. APRIL 8, 1916.] NOTES AND Q UERIES.

297

It is interesting to observe, in confirmation of H. C.'s note, that in the first excerpt given above the name is written Campigne, while in the leases it is given as Compigne.

The original records from which I have ^obtained the foregoing information are housed in the Winchester Public Library and form part of the local archives of this -ancient city.

A. CECIL PIPER, City Librarian. Winchester.

POWDERED GLASS (12 S. i. 169). The following extract is from Christison's
 * Treatise on Poisons,' 1836, p. 569 :

" It is a common notion that pounded glass is an active poison. There is no doubt, indeed, that it -does possess some irritant properties even when finely pulverized, for it titillates and smarts the nostrils and inflames the eyes. There is also little doubt that when swallowed in fragments of moderate size, especially if the stomach is empty, it may wound the viscera. But it is in this way -only that it has any action when swallowed, and even then its effects are by no means uniformly serious. It can have no chemical action on the stomach ; it cannot act through absorption, as it is quite insoluble; and when finely pulverized, it cannot easily wound the villous coat of the ali- mentary canal, on account of the abundance of the lubricating mucus.

"Accordingly, Mr. Lesauvage ascertained that 2$ drachms of the powder may be given to a cat at once without hurting the animal, that in the course of eight days seven ounces might be given to a dog without any bad consequence, although the period chosen for administering it was always some time before the meals, and that even when the glass was in fragments a line in length, no symptoms of irritation were induced. Relying vindeed on these results, he himself swallowed a considerable number of these fragments, and did not

sustain any injury Caldani likewise, an Italian

physician, after some experiments on animals, gave a boy fifteen years old several drachms of powdered glass, without observing any bad effects ; and at his request Mandruzzato repeated his experiments on animals, and himself swallowed on two suc- cessive days two drachms and a half each day, without sustaining any injury."

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

Powdered glass has been classed among poisons, but, properly speaking, it is not one. 1 have known it to be given to animals as a vermifuge. All the same, I should not advise your correspondent to take it in quantity, or, for that matter, at all. For, .as William Ramesey says in his treatise * Of Poysons' :

" Glass, they say (which they number among Poysons), Corrodes the Belly and Intralls, and thereby causeth Death. But, they may as well say splints of Bones, Needles, Pins, or other sharp thing is Poyson, because they also, many times, perforate the Intestines being swallowed, and Destroy the party.*'

However finely powdered, glass would be likely enough to irritate the stomach and bowels, and taken in quantity its weight alone might cause perforation, as I have heard of heavy earths doing when taken, as they used to be, as tonics. C. C. B.

I have heard in Derbyshire of powdered glass being given in some way to a person's domestic animals out of spite, with the intention of killing them, but not exactly as poison ; and I have heard of a man's donkey being treated in this way so that it died. But I never heard any one say how the pounded glass was administered to the animal. The glass, as I understand, was not done to powder, but finely pounded, and so set up an irritation which caused death. This was one of the many queer methods of "spiting" a person; and such things as spiting were more common years ago than they are now. In Sheffield it was called " rattening." THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Worksop.

Sir Thomas Browne includes the belief that glass is poisonous among vulgar errors. See ' Pseudodoxia Epidemica,' bk. ii. chap. v. 2. DAVID SALMON.

Swansea.

MACAULAY'S PRINCE TITI (12 S. i. 207). In answer to CYRIL, the one-volume edition of Croker's * Boswell,' in my copy, dated on the title-page 1866, contains, between pp. x and xi of the preliminary matter, an interpolation (pp. 3 to 14) of ' Answers to Mr. Macaulay's Review of Mr. Croker's Boswell.' On p. 1 1, after quoting Macaulay's words, the second (answering) column reads :

'' Answer. Here is a pretty round assertion of a matter of fact. 'The History of Prince Tit-i, whether written by Prince Frederick or Ralph, was certainly never published!' Now, unfortunately for this learned Reviewer, we have at this moment on our table the

"Histoire | du | Prince Titi. | A(Uegorie) R(oyale). \ Paris chez la Veuve Oissot, Quai de Conti | & la Croix d'Or.

" And not only was it thus published in Paris, but it was translated into English, and republished in London, under the title of

" The j History | of | Prince Titi, 1 A 1 Royal Allegory. \ Translated by a Lady. "What say you to that, Mr. Reviewer? Is not this, to say the least of it, ' a scandalous inaccuracy, and is not he, who falls into such a mistake as this entitled to no confidence whatever ? ' '

There are four further paragraphs in ontinuation, but the above gives the more important details.

I suppose these pages of ' Answers ' are not in all copies of the issue from which I