Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/481

 12 s.i. JUNE 10, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

475

I remember to this day the horror am disgust I experienced at the sight, and m anger at, as I thought, such legalize* cruelty.

That is the only dead donkey that I hav -ever seen, with the exception of one in Fij which died after a few days' illness.

J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

At Bramley, near Basingstoke, there is a fenced- in pound on a patch of waste grounc at the side of the lane leading to the station the lane being crossed by the Great Western branch line from Reading to Basingstoke Some will remember the old Five Bell public-house in the village (close to the church gates), since converted into a villa and they may also have a vision of smock f rocked villagers sitting on benches outside that hostelry, enjoying their " cup " of ale on Sunday evenings, while the rest of the inhabitants were at service in the church close by. But all that is changed, and som years since, when the licence of the Five T3ells was transferred to the newly buili Railway Hotel, near the station, at the other end of the village, there was current a rustic pleasantry that at the new premises beer "would be " sold by the pound."

M. S. T.

"STATEROOM" = A PASSENGER'S CABIN <12 S. i. 307). The story related to MR. HILL by an esteemed fellow-countrywoman of mine has long been current in this country, =and occasionally goes the rounds of the American newspapers. It is disconcerting to find it taken seriously in 'N. & Q.' As originally applied to vessels, a. state-room meant the room of a captain or superior officer. Here are some examples not hitherto ^quoted :

" The Seas ran so high, that they broke over them several times, into the State Boom where their Graces [the Duke and Duchess of Dorset] were in Bed." Pennsylvania Gazette, Aug. 7, 1732, p. 1.

" This Fellow [an Indian named Witness]. . . . took a broad Axe and went into his Master's State-Boom [on the brigantine Recovery], where lie was fast asleep, and made a Stroke at him." New England Weekly Journal, Feb. 18, 1734, p. 2. " The Captain order'd it so, that he might lye In the Cabbin, to oblige me, and that I should have the State-Room for my own Use." W. Seward 'Journal, 1 1740, p. 19.

" Thomas Debuke master Declared that he

left Lisbon the fifteenth of January last and that his mate William Ea.gleston was taken down with the Small Pox about Ten days before he Sailed that he kept him Confined in the State Room on the Larboard side." April 5, 1715, 'Boston .Record Commissioners' Reports' (1887), xvii. 105.

" London, Feb. 13. On the 18th, for certain, will be launched .... the Royal George.' She .... is fitted and decorated in a very extraordinary and beautiful manner, by the most able carver and painter in England, particularly her cabbius and state rooms in basso-relievo." Boston Xetcs Letter, May 26, 17f>6, p. 2.

" Mr. Parsons and lady rode with me to the harbor [Boston, Mass.], where we.... went on board the Lady Juliana, a prize ship of 400 tons-, taken by one of our privateers, bound from Jamaica to London. The cabins and state-rooms were spacious, her carvings elegant, and her cargo very valuable." June 17, 1776, M. Cutler, in ' Life, Journals, and Correspondence ' (1888), i. 55.

Early examples of the term in this sense are given in the ' N.E.D.' from Pepys (1660), The London Gazette (1694), and ' Smollett (1748). The transference in meaning from an officer's room to a passenger's room was simple and inevitable, the only questions being when and where that extension took place. The earliest extract in the ' N.E.D.' is from Harriet Martineau, 1837. This is belated, since on March 22, 1821, Adam Hodgson, then on his return to Liverpool from New York, wrote :

"It is again midnight; but as we have 19 passengers, and as I cannot write in my state- room, I avail myself of a quiet moment, which can only occur when all are in bed, to write ray journal." ' Letters from North America.' 1824, ii. 328.

Soon after the close of the American Revolu- tion, John Adams was appointed the first American Minister to England. He was then in Europe, and was shortly joined bv his wife. In a letter dated July 6, 1784, "Mrs. Adams gives an interesting account of ocean travel at that time, saying in part :

' Our accommodations on board are not what [ could wish, or hoped for. We cannot be alone, only when the gentlemen are thoughtful enough xj retire upon deck, which they do for about an lour in. the course of the day. Our state-rooms are aboxit half as large as cousin Betsey's little chamber, with two cabins in each. Mine had \dams's brother [a namesake, but not a relative] gave up his to Abby [a daughter of John Adams], and we are now stowed two and two. This place las a small grated window, which opens into the companion way, and by this is the only air idmitfced. The door opens into the cabin where he gentlemen all sleep, and where we sit, dine, Arc. kVe can only live with our door shut, whilst we Lress and undress. Necessity has no law ; but vhat should I ha.ve thought on shore, to have laid uyself down in common With half a dozen gentle- cien ? We have curtains, it is true, and we only n part undress, about as much as the Yankee undlers." ' Letters of Abigail Adams,' 1848, . 161.
 * hree, but I could not live so. Upon which Mrs.

Here then, in 1784 less than a decade

vfter the appearance of an American

State," and nineteen years before the