Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/233

 is s. ii. SEPT. 16, i9i6.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

227

If the great French philosopher's advice Tiad been followed, many subsequent wars including the present one, might have been avoided. ANDREW DE TERN ANT.

36 Somerleyton Road, Brixton, S.W.

" COMMUNIQUE." Here is another word frequently used in our own newspapers when conveying intelligence from the seat of war. But why annex it when we have the more suitable equivalents "dispatch," "report," and so forth ? "German communiques" a term also employed, is surely quite an in- excusable combination. CECIL CLARKE. Junior Athenaeum Club.

(Qiums.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

SIR ALEXANDER ERASER, PHYSICIAN TO CHARLES II. This rather pompous per- sonage (inadequately accounted for in the ' D.N.B.') belonged to the Frasers of Durris. I have just seen an old catalogue which quotes a letter by him, written on Aug. 22, 1663, in which he implores speedy justice upon

killed most iahumanly my uncle, Alexander Lindsay, who married my aunt the Lady Barras : I entreat your Lordship not to suffer so barbarous a murther of an old gentleman of 72 yeares, "without arms, to passe unpunished."
 * ' a gentilman of the name of Gordon, who hath

What does this murder refer to ? The only aunt of Fraser I know of, Mary Fraser, married the Rev. Andrew Ramsay, father of Andrew Ramsay of Abbotshall.

J. M. BULLOCH. 123 Pall Mall, S.W.

CLOTH INDUSTRY AT AYR IN THE SEVEN- TEENTH CENTURY. A member of my familv Abraham del Court (born 1623), a Huguenot after a preliminary visit to Scotland in 1650, settled at Ayr about 1660. His brother Jacob, at Amsterdam on June 12, 1663, signs before Notary Public Donckerts a contract with a servant who is to take Abraham del Court's children to Ayr in Scot- land. This proves that he intended estab- lishing himself in that country.

^ Abraham del Court's relatives were at that time at the head of that famous cloth industry of Amsterdam which is now entirely extinct. Abraham del Court had presumably been invited to come over to Scotland to found an industry that at that period, except for the manufacturing of plaids, could hardly be

said to exist in North Britain, lie Wiis a man of importance. A look at the magni- ficent full-length portrait group of himself and his wife by Van cler Heist in the Museum Boijmans at Rotterdam shows it at a glance.

Can any reader give me information con- cerning the cloth industry at Ayr besides what Prof. W. R. Scott mentions in his ' New Mills Records,' Scottish Historical Society, vol. xxxiv., and in his book on Companies, vol. iii. ? The least detail concerning the textile industry of Ayr of any period but preferably of the seventeenth century will be welcome.

W. DEL COURT.

47 Blenheim Crescent, W.

" DON'T BE LONGER THAN YOU CAN HELP."

Why is this phrase used ? It plainly should be : " Don't be longer than you can not help." It means " Do not be longer than avoidable." The time " avoidable " is the time you can not help taking.

This question I find among the notes of my late brother, William Whitebrook, for many years one of your occasional querists. I do not see any easy solution to the difficulty suggested. " The extent of use of the phrase is also unknown to me. I have heard it in London, from persons habituated to accu- racy of speech. J. C. W.

ROBERT WILLIAM ELLISTON. I should be greatly obliged if some Latin scholar would give the correct translation of these lines, which appear on the monument of the above actor in St. John's, Waterloo Bridge Road : Dum pia Melpomene, nato pereunte querelas Fundit, et ante alias orba Thalia gemit ; Non minus in fletus fidi solvuntur amici, * Non minus egregii pignora chara tori : ^Equum, et propositi deplorant grande tenacem Eximiae fidei justitiaeque virum.

G. S. PARRY.

.While, as her son dies, leal Melpomene her plaints fours, and Thalia wails beyond her sisters lorn, No less his friends true-hearted into weeping break, No less the pledges dear of his proud marriage-bed : They mourn a man fair-minded, that which lie had

set him Full strong to hold to, of high honour and

righteousness.]

THE REV. WARD MAULE. I shall be much

obliged if any of your readers can give me

n urther information about this clergyman

than I possess at present. He was ap-

jointed by the Bishop and the committee

of the Additional Clergy Society of Madras

o the incumbency of Christ Church, Nag-

oore, in 1856 ; and in the following year to

he incumbency of Christ Church, Nellore.

He returned to England in 1859. I cannot