Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/193

 12 B. II. SEPT. 2, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

187

oa the other hand, we are just as unable to think of a cessation of time. These are matters which to the human brain, being what it is, are truly " unthinkable."

" Unthinkable " is not, it may be ad- mitted, in any sense a pleasing word, but it as a very apt one. Its very literalness, its Anglo-Saxon directness, its uncouth con- struction, all help to enforce its meaning. Jt seems to have been, and quite possibly was, coined for the occasion. To say that a thing is " incomprehensible," for instance, does not now convey nearly the same mean- ing. It may merely denote that we do not understand because we have not the neces- sary facts before us upon which to form a judgment. But to say that a thing is " unthinkable " is to say that it is altogether beyond the scope of mind.

Can we not make some effort to save this word for its legitimate use, instead of having it applied in pure sensationalism to any political occasion which presents factors which are a little out of the common ? Does the man who says that "it is unthinkable that Germany will win the war," or that " an election is unthinkable at this time," really suppose that the human mind is in- capable of forming a conception of either of these contingencies ? W. A. ATKINSON.

UNCUT PAPER. On Nov. 24, 1665, Pepys paid a visit to Evelyn at Sayes Court, where his host showed him some autograph letters of Queen Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots. In his ' Diary,' under the above date, Pepys makes the following entry : "" But, Lord ! how poorly, methinks, they wrote in those days, and in what plain uncut paper," from which it would appear that it was then the practice to trim writing paper by removing the rough or " deckle " edge. I was not previously aware that this practice was of quite so early a date. R. B. P.

MEMORIAL OF CHOLERA VICTIMS, BICESTER, OXON. In the year 1832 this town was visited by a severe cholera epidemic, to which upwards of sixty-four persons fell victims. A headstone on the south side of the churchyard was erected to their memory. During the course of time many of the names became worn away and needed renewing. A former Vicar of Bicester, the Rev. J. B. Kane, who was presented to that living in 1881, had this stone restored at his own expense, and the work was carried out by Randell James Litten (junior), son of Randell James Litten (senior), who were both monu- mental masons in Bicester. As a few of the

names and figures are again showing signs of decay and will soon need a second restoration, I thought it advisable to tran- scribe them and send them to ' N. & Q.' for publication while they can still be read. The inscription on the stone is as under :

Erected at the public expense

to the memory of

sixty Eoui persons who died in this parish

by cholera morbus

A.D. MDCCCXXXII.

Their names are under written

James George William Westbury Samuel Clark John Edmonds Hannah Pallett Mary Ann Mason Mary Pritchett Robert Spenser Jane Horwood Hannah Aston Ann Plester Levi Dormer Jane Jackson William Blinco Sarah Aston Sarah Jackson Phoebe Clifton Mary Pratt William Bradley Mary Steven Thomas Plester Dorothy Castle Thomas Mauder Samuel Clifton William Stirman Matilda Dormer Martha Bradley John Smith Mary Smith Thomas Miles James Richardson Elizabeth Hunt

53 19 67 18 39

7

16 50 21 12

2

4

3

63 52 54 52

6

63 38

4

67 54 52 47

1

62 19 15 35 63 30

Mary Pritchett 42 William Blinco 41 Harriett Grace Thomas Roberts 45 Mary Ann Wheeler 9 George King 62

Ann Pritchett Hannah Blinco 25 Edward Coxill 62

Martha Gaydon 47 Robert Timms Emma Archer Jane Auger George Wiggins Henry Tooley Sarah Tooley Rebecca Allen 27

Elizabeth Coleman 8 Jane Pitts 2

William Waddup 69 Mary Ann Gomm 25 William March 13

James Pallett 30

Ann Pallett 6

Richard Edmonds 55 Fanny Force William Force Ann Parker Elizabeth Auger 26 Thomas Auger Martha Waddup 69 James Parker 37

These persons all died within the space of two months commencing June 7, 1832, and their bodies are buried near this stone.

Bedford.

L. H. CHAMBERS.

ANCIENT ROMAN AND WELSH LAW. It may, perhaps, be worth recording that the substance of ancient Roman law, which has been summarized in its three tenets, " 1. Honeste vivere ; 2. Alterum non Isedere ; 3. Suum cuique tribuere," accord- ing to Justinian's ' Institutiones ' (as correctly stated in ' N. & Q.,' 10 S. xi. 38, by PROF. E. BENSLY, in reply to a query of mine), must have been not unknown to the lawgivers of ancient Wales, and afforded one of the chief sources for the law-book of King Howel-Dda, i.e., Howel the Good, who reigned A.D. 907-48. For the following paragraph, almost verbally, in its sense, agreeing with it, occurs in Aneurin Owen's