Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/474

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. n. DEC. 9, wie.

to the throne on June 30, 1837. She 'married Prince Albert Feb. 10, 1840, and in 1833 both she and Albert were but four- teen years of age. Therefore Mr. Smee could not very well paint a portrait of the sovereign and her august consort at any time during the thirties. FREDERICK S. DICKSON.

New York, 215 West 101st Street.

ST. KTLDA COLDS : TRISTAN DA CUNHA. Shortly after coming across a comment (11 S. viii. 126) on ' St. Kilda and Influenza,' I happened to be reading Mrs. Barrow's 'Three Years- in Tristan da Cunha.' She writes in her diary, shortly after her arrival :

" It is curious how, whenever a ship is boarded, colds go the round of the settlement. We were talking to Repetto [the most educated inhabitant | about this, and he told us he did not at first believe it, but has seen it proved again and again. The usual thing has happened after the visit of ^ the Surrey, and many are now laid up with colds."

I think this shows that the peculiar sus- ceptibility to " cold " germs is not limited to St. Kilda islanders, but is possessed by the inhabitants of any settlement remote from the outside world. It would be in- teresting to know whether the same phe- nomenon has been noticed in Pitcairn Island, to which a mail was dispatched in October last.

I see the same idea is mooted at 10 S. vii 307, where a quotation from Mrs. Edgeworth David decidedly supports the theory.

G. A. ANDERSON.

TRANSPARENT BEE-HIVES. Glass bee- hives, in which the bees could be seen at work, were shown at the International Ex- hibition of 1862, and were then regarded as a novelty, but they are in reality more than two centuries old. In 1679 Moses Rusden Apothecary, and Bee-Master to Charles II. published a tract entitled ' A further dis- covery of Bees. . . .with the experiments arising from the keeping them in transparent boxes instead of straw hives.'

I have recently renewed my acquaintance with Charles and Mary Lamb's ' Mrs. Leices ter's School,' published originally in 1809 and at p. 44 of an undated edition issued by Swan Sonnenschein & Co. I find the fol lowing :

"Before I came away from grandmamma's, '. grew so bold, 1 let Will Tasker hold me over thi glass windows at the top of the hives, to see then make honey in their own home."

The above extract is taken from the accoun given by " Louisa Manners " (a town child of a visit to a farmhouse. R. B. P.

(Queries.

WK must request correspondents desiring in- ormation on family matters of only private interest 10 affix their names and addresses to their queries n order that answers may be sent to them direct.

AN ARTIST'S SIGNATURE : THACKERAY AND ' PUNCH.' About sixty years ago, an able artist contributed drawings to Punch, many of them being ingeniously made initial etters. He signed them with a mark some- what like a trident, or a Greek le ter Psi~

was he ? He dealt largely in birds and quadrupeds. One of his best things was a picture (July 4, 1857) of two Egyptian

ishermen, one of whom has hooked a croco- dile, which to its astonishment finds itself in mid-air.

In December, 1856, and January, 1857,. there were three papers, ' Set a thief to catch a thief,' written in a mode not very far distant from that of Jeames Yellowplush. Each one has an illustration, the first one- signed W. T. in a blurred fashion, the second with the trident-mark already mentioned, while John Leech did the third. I dare not attribute these three papers to Thackeray r t>ut he did contribute much to Punch in. its earlier days, and all of this has not yet been identified. He took serious offence at Leech's cartoon, 1850, representing Na- poleon III. as riding over a precipice to ruin. But I think he supplied material for some years after that. Perhaps it is not too late, even now, to obtain light on this topic.

RICHARD H. THORNTON.

DICK ENGLAND (See 4 S. v. 403; 8 S. iv. 429; v. 13V When and where did " the notorious Dick England " die ? The- latest mention of him that I have found is in a paragraph in The Morning Post on Jan. 10, 1799. HORACE BLEACKLEY.

KANYETE. A textile frequently men- tioned in Fountains Abbey Accounts, among other things which the servants received as wages in kind, and which are named in the accounts with their estimated money value. Thus in 1454 Robert Harope the barber received in one pair of spurs, 6d. ; in one pair of shoes, Qd. ; in money, 6d. ; in three ells of kanyete, 3s. ; and in one horse, 27s. 8d.

1 have not been able to find kanyete in the ' N.E.D.' nor in any glossary that I have consulted, but should be glad to know what it was, and whether it is mentioned in other accounts or anywhere else. J. T. F.