Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/20

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. m. JAN. e, 1917.

James Mitan (not Mittan), the engraver, -was born in London on Feb. 13, 1776, and died on Aug. 16, 1822. Further information may be obtained from the ' D.N.B.,' vol. xiii. ; Gentleman's Magazine, 1823, ii. 86 ; 1843, ii. 104 ; Redgrave's ' Dictionary of Artists ' ; and the Royal Academy Catalogues.

E. E. BARKER.

HEADSTONES 'WITH PORTRAITS OF THE
 * DECEASED (12 S. ii. 210, 277, 377, 459).

Recently, when copying the inscriptions in Beckenham Churchyard, Kent, for the Society of Genealogists of London, I found the portraits of William Atkinson and Anna Sophia his wife, who died respectively in 1907 and 1905. H. W. P.

When visiting Arno's Vale Cemetery, Bristol, many years ago, I saw such a medallion portrait above the grave of a well-known doctor, if I remember rightly.

ARTHUR MEE.

THE "OLD BRITISH DOLLAR" (12 S. ii. 448). In China the Mexican dollar has long been in circulation among the Europeans, and also to a great extent among the Chinese

.^at the coast towns ; its nominal value is

~%s. Id., just half that of the American dollar.

"In 1866 an issue of British dollars coined at Bombay appeared in Hong- Kong. These

coins are still current at Shanghai and other ports. In 1895 a new trade dollar for Hong-Kong and the Straits Settlements was struck, on account of the scarcity of Mexican

'dollars ; and in 1903 a fresh dollar was issued for the Straits. Its value is just half that of the United States coin. N. W. HILL.

FlSHING-ROD IN THE BlBLE OR TALMUD

'(12 S. ii. 308, 450). The invention of the internal combustion engine rendered the flying machine practicable, and in like manner the invention of a long, strong, and fine cord, free from knots and joins, rendered rod-fishing practicable.

The early fishing lines were made of hair, hide, or fibre, both coarse and full of knots, and absolutely useless as " running tackle." You can play a large fish on a hand-line, but not on a rod and fixed line.

There could be no rod-fishing until a line "was evolved to run true and evenly through the rod rings without knot or kink, as these cause a sudden jerk and check, that smashes rod or line. Me miserum.

Fishing " with a worm at one end and a rod at the other " could only have been used for small fish or sport, neither of which was -of much account then.

If rods had been in popular use we should certainly find them among the ideographs of such a " fishy " land as Egypt ; but whilst fish, nets, and, hooks abound, the nearest approach to a fishing-rod is the whip.

Native tribes of to-day do not use a rod, n uther does the sea fisherman who plies for the " pot." Theirs is the primitive style and also effective. I have often used the " throw stick," mentioned by MR. BRESLAR, at Aldeburgh, but this can in no sense be termed a fishing-rod, as it is only an ex- pedient for those who cannot throw out the line by hand to a sufficient distance, which is a little beyond the second breaker. Those who can swing a line with six hooks some 60 yards or more without catching the last hook in the calf of their leg scorn a "throw- stick." H. A. HARRIS.

" FAUGH- A-BALLAGH " (12 S. ii. 350, 416). Perhaps the following extract is worth quoting :

" Napier's inaccurate statements, with regard to Barrosa, and afterwards in connexion with the siege of Tarifa,are probably responsible for the error sometimes made of attaching the sou- briquet [sic], ' Faugh-a-Ballaghs ' (Clear the ways), to the 88th or the 89th instead of to the 87th, to which alone it is historically applicable." ' The Life and Campaigns of Hugh, First Vis- count Gough,' by Robert S. Bait, 1903, i. 55 note.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

MARAT: HENRY KINGSLEY (12 S. ii. 409, 475). The very interesting article by Prof. Morse Stephens, cited by SIR WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK at the latter reference, appeared in The Pall Mall Magazine of September and October, 1896. The author deals severely with Carlyle's account and description of Marat in his ' French Revolution.' The refutation of the Warrington Academy legend and others is in the September number of the magazine, p. 83. The article has ten illustrations, half of them from prints in the British Museum, and all, I think, authentic. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

CYPRUS CAT (12 S. ii. 427). The note on this subject reminds me that when I was in the wholesale stationery trade many years ago we used to sell to trunk-makers a so-called " Cypress " paper. We also called it " Cypress' not " Cyprus " ; and, I think, we connected it with the cypress of the poets, on account of its most lugubrious colour. But the curious point is that the trunk-makers always called it " typhus paper," and, really, I was never surprised, for it had an uncanny resemblance to a plague-spotted skin. I trust it is now extinct. HOWARD S. PEARSON.