Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/494

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. ra. NOV., 1017.

for War, used it in the speech he made at a dinner at Liverpool on Oct. 13, in honour of a docker V.C. The Daily Telegraph of Oct. 15, p. 5, thus reported the passage :

" This country had, with the aeroplane menace, been brought within the war zone, and they must show the same courage at home as their soldiers did at the front. In London a considerable number of men and women were taking refuge in Tubes on the slightest provocation, but among many of them it was difficult to understand the language they talked. The great bulk of the community was not likely to be rattled by air raids, but he hoped they would never forget them." j. R, T.

BUTTONS (12 S. iii. 445). Men were buttoning their doublets from left to right at least as early as the reign of Elizabeth. The right hand being used in buttoning or unbuttoning, it was natural that the left- hand fold of a garment should be arranged to overlie and be buttoned on to the right- hand fold. When, however, at a much later date, women of fashion began to affect buttons on their dress, the fold was reversed and the buttons were placed on the left-hand fold, probably because the buttoning and unbuttoning of the female garment was usually performed by the lady's maid. The buttoning by deputy would require the reverse arrangement of fold and buttons to that of the masculine garment, which was usually buttoned and unbuttoned by the wearer himself. W. FABEEB.

Over Kellet.

" LOSING LOADUM," A GAME (12 S. iii. 332, 402). In Urquhart and Motteux's translation of Rabelais, Bohn's edition, book i. chap, xxii., in the list of " The Games of Gargantua " the thirtieth game is " Losing load him." This represents " coquimbert, qui guaigne perd." In the glossary in " (Euvres de F. Rabelais, a Paris, chez Ledentu, 1837," coquimbert, cocq imbert, is said to be a game of skittles in Touraine. It is added, however, that, according to Le Duchat, it is a way of playing at draughts in which the player who gets rid of his pieces first (" qui le premier vide son echiquier ") wins.

In the 14th edition of the ' Grand Dic- tionnaire ' of Napoleon Landais, 1862, is " coquinbat," a sort of game of draughts in which the loser wins.

In Halliwell's ' Dictionary ' appears : follow references, and " one way of playing was called losing-lodam. ' Coquimbert, qui gaigne pert, a game at cards like our loosing lodam,' Cotgrave."
 * ' Lodam. An old game at cards " ; then

See also Nares's ' Glossary,' Halliwell and Wright's edition, 1872, s.v. Lodam.

W. F. Smith in his translation of Rabelais gives "Loser wins" for "coquimbert, qui guaigne perd."

I think that one may gather that "co- quimbert " was a game at draughts, and ' losing load him" (" loadum " or " lodam") a card game, in each of which the player who lost the most won the game.

ROBERT PIERPODS'J..

KENBICK PBESCOT, D.D. (12 S. iii. 449). He was a member of the University of Cambridge, of which he became B.A. in 1723, M.A. in 1727, B.D. in 1738, and D.D. in 1749. He was " Usher " (that is, Second Master) of Charterhouse from 1731 to 1736. On the death of James Harcourt, D.D., Canon of Bristol Cathedral (died Feb. 27, 1738/9 ; buried March 1 in the Cathedral), he was nominated by the governors of Charterhouse to succeed him in the per- petual curacy of Hartland, North Devon, which had been purchased by the executors of the founder, Thomas Sutton, in 1612 ; but he was not licensed until Jan. 8, 1745. He had been previously elected a Fellow of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, and became its Master in 1741. He, however, retained the perpetual curacy of Hartland, the duties being performed by William Morris as assistant or stipendiary curate. In 1752 he was appointed to Balsham in Cambridgeshire, another living in the gift of Charterhouse, and Morris was appointed to succeed him, being licensed to the cure, on the cession of Kenrick Prescot, on Sept. 28, 1752. R. PEABSE CHOPE.

An account of Kenrick Prescot, son of Henry Prescot, Registrar of Chester, and brother of Prebendary Prescot of Chester, is given by Bishop G. F. Browne in his ' History of St. Catharine's College,' pp. 206-8. Prescot was Master from 1741 to 1779. He was Vice -Chancellor in 1744-5, and in September of the latter year, with the Duke of Newcastle (High Steward of the University) and several Heads of Houses, Doctors, &c., waited on the King with an address on " The unnatural Rebellion lately broke out." See C. H. Cooper, ' Annals of Cambridge,' vol. iv. p. 250.

Prescot was not, in his later years at least, an agreeable associate. " His com- pany was dreaded, for he could talk only of his physical maladies, which were very severe" ('Hist, of St. Cath. Coll.,' p. 207). Bishop Browne prints some extracts from.