Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/524

518

NOTES AND QUERIES. i .2 s. i. JUNE 24, 1916. "The inducements, at these rates, to any one anxious to visit the plains, and see a live buffalo, and perhaps a 'live injun,' were certainly very

tempting, as the full expense of the above trip, at the regular rate of fare, would not have been short of seventy dollars." D. B. R. Keim, ' Sheridan's Troopers on the Border,' 1870, p. 76.

" A few weeks afterward I met Beaver [Black Beaver, a Delaware Indian] again, and asked him if he had appropriated his money to a good purpose. He replied yes ; that on his arrival at home he had given his friends a 'big feast,' which lasted several days, and consumed all his money. He added, ' I'ze big Injun now, captain.'" General R. B. Marcy, 'Border Reminiscences,' 1872, p. 346.

The expression " honest Injun " has long been in familiar use in this country-^-jocosely among grown-up people, seriousfy among boys. I have never seen an explanation of its origin, but offer the following guess.

Whether rightly or wrongly, treachery and dishonesty have from the earliest times been associated with the Indian, and he was regarded as beyond the pale of ordinary treatment. He was hunted with dogs, and bounties (popularly called " scalp- money ") were offered for his scalp, there being a regular scale of prices, and the popular feeling was expressed in the saying : " The only good Indian is a dead Indian." This feeling lasted in each community just so long as the Indian continued to be a factor. In short, an " honest Indian " was regarded as an impossibility, or, at least, as a rara avis.

If a man makes an out-and-out denial, it is in ordinary cases assumed that he is speaking the truth. But truthfulness is a late development, and a boy's denial is received with caution. If I say to a boy, " Did you do so-and-so ? " and he replies, ' No," I may be doubtful and then ask, " Honest ? " He replies, " Honest." If, still sceptical, I further ask, " Honest Injun?" as much as to say, "Are you speaking the truth as an honest Indian should ? " and he replies " Honest Injun," I feel confident that he is speaking the truth, for that expression is the boy's equivalent to a Bible oath. ALBERT MATTHEWS.

Boston, U.S.

ROBERT SOUTHEY (12 S. i. 469). The following, from William Hewitt's ' Homes and Haunts of the British Poets,' 1847, though not directly supplying an answer, may assist :

"[Southey's] mother's maiden name was Hill, and she had a half-sister, a Miss Tyler, with whom Southey was a good deal in his boyhood. He has left us a very minute account of his connexions

and his early days This Miss Tyler was rich

and handsome, and lived in Walcot Parade

Bath [afterwards in Terrill Street, Bristol]. On Southey's father's death. 'Miss Tyler and hi& uncle, the Rev. Herbert Hill, now became Southey's main stays.' He married in Sept., 1795, and at once accompanied his maternal uncle, Hill, who was chaplain to the Factory at Lisbon ; being absent from England about six months."

Howitt seems to refer to Southey's ' Lifa- and Correspondence ' as his authority.

W. B. H.

PARISHES IN Two COUNTIES (11 S. ix. 29, 75, 132, 210, 273, 317, 374; xi. 421; 12 S. i. 450, 499). There are some errors and omissions in the useful table at the Denultimate reference. In Lancashire it is not Little Mitton but Aighton that is in the parish of Mitton in Yorkshire. In addition the township of Ireby is in the Yorkshire parish of Thornton in Lonsdale. In Cheshire the oarish of Barthomley includes the township of Barterley in Staffordshire. The Cheshire townships of Wirswall, Marbury, and Nor- Dury are in the parish of Whitchurch in; Shropshire. J. J. B.

SUSSEX WINDMILLS (12 S. i. 326, 453). Ct is very sad to see the picturesque old Sussex windmills left to decay and destruc- ion. Mr. A. S. Cooke, in his ' Off the Beaten Track in Sussex,' says at p. 244 :

' Clayton Mills are the only ones now existing on bhe north escarpment, since Wilmington Mill was burned down, and, alas ! these too have ceased working! One is a Tower, the other a 'Smock' Mill. Constable sketched the Tower Mill. In his day the other mill had not arrived ! It was moved or brought from the Dyke Road in Brighton, and re-erected here."

In The Saturday Review of Oct. 16, 1915' in an article ' Autumn on the Sussex Downs,,, the writer states that an old shepherd at Clayton told him that he recollects when the lower mill was put up :

" Brought all the way from Brighton; they tried to get it up the hill with horses, and they broke the tackling every time, 'cause they snatched, ye see ; so they had to get oxen, ever so many pairs, and they drawed it up as steady."

I think this shepherd must be a pretty old man to remember this, and I should be very glad if any of your readers can tell me the date of the removal of this mill.

My uncle told me many years ago of the removal of a mill, and it may have been the Clayton Mill, for he made exactly the same remarks about the horses and oxen.

There is no doubt about the fact that mills were bodily moved from one position to another about Brighton. In the Brighton Pavilion there is an original drawing showing the removal of the old windmill from Belle