Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/117

 ia s. iv. APRIL, i9i8.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Christ ? ' And then Martin, blessed of the Holy Ghost, said : ' Our Lord Jesu Christ saith not thai he shall come in purple ne with a crown resplen- dent. I shall never believe that Jesu Christ shall come but if it be in habit and form such as he suffered death in, and that the sign of the Cross be borne tofore him.' And with that word he vanished away, and all the hall was filled with stench."

JOHN D. LE COUTEUB. 5 Shaftesbury Road, Southsea.

The story is attached to St. Martin of Tours, and is told by Mr. Baring-Gould in ' Lives of the Saints ' under Nov. 11.

ST. SWITHIN.

THE DUTCH IN THE THAMES (12 S. iii. 472). As no one has replied to Mc.'s com- munication about the Dutch eel-boats, or schuits, in the Pool below London Bridge, I venture to do so because I want very much to find out the truth. Me. writes as follows :

" It is common knowledge among long-shore folks that these Dutch eel-boats and their guard and warder have been coming under royal charter for at least three hundred years, and probably much longer " ;

and again :

" This chartered privilege . . . .subsisted even throughout naval wars between the young Dutch Republic and the English Government of various forms."

Your correspondent is here repeating a well- known tradition : I ask him if he has found any contemporary axithority for the state- ment.

In 1912 a friend of mine interested in the subject, who was anxious to prove the Dutchmen's supposed rights, inquired of the Fishmongers' Company, and was referred by them to the Master of Billingsgate. He told him of a little book, then lately published, the title of which is ' Some "Old London Memories,' by W. J. Koberts, and from this I will now quote :

" Lying near to Billingsgate, and just off the Customs House adjoining it, are the Dutch eel- boats in themselves a memorial which has caused speculation among writers on London, and led them to talk much nonsense. No matter when we visit Billingsgate, we shall always find one or more of these boats, and this fact has led people to suppose that they hold the moorings by some prescriptive right. Research has failed to prove this ; application to the Thames Con- servancy failed to produce any confirmation of it, although careful search was made among the records there ; and a reference to the Consxil- General of the Netherlands produced a like result in fact he informed me that the matter had engaged his earnest attention, but that he could trace nothing. These Dutch eel-fishers have clung tenaciously to one particular spot. The

whole secret of their holding these moorings is* that they never vacate them one or more boats- remaining there (even though their cargo of eels may nave long been discharged) until relieved by other of their, fleet bringing fresh cargoes."

I could cull more on the subject from Mr. Roberts's booklet, but what I have said proves that, in spite of careful inquiry, he found no evidence whatever of prescriptive- right. Perhaps M c. has been more f ortunate..

In Visscher s ' View of London,' 1616, no- Dutch eel-boats are shown near Billingsgate,- but there are two above bridge, amid stream, below Queenhithe, and nearly oppo- site the Three Cranes, there shown actxially at work. They are described on the view as " The Eal Schipes."

PHILIP NORMAN.

BOOK ABOUT PIRATES (12 S. iv. 17). I have a copy of the small book referred to with the title-page intact, which reads as follows :

" Lives | Exploits and Cruelties | of | the most celebrated | Pirates | and | Sea Robbers | brought down to the latest period | Liverpool, Thomas Johnson | Dale Street. 1840."

According to the list of contents, my copy contains the story of thirty pirates. Benito- de Soto is followed by ' Charles Gibbs,' ' History of the Joassamee Pirates of the Persian Gulf,' and lastly by ' History of the Algerine Pirates.' Unfortunately the last 40 pages have been torn out.

Thomas Johnson, the printer and pub- lisher of this book, seems to have been concerned with others of the same kind, for I have one in exactly the same form and style entitled ' Lives and Exploits of the Most Noted Highwaymen, Bobbers, and Murderers,' also published by Thomas Johnson at the same address. This book is; in perfect order and complete.

A. H. ARKLE.

Elmhurst, Oxton, Birkenhead.

LONDON SUBURBAN PLACE-NAMES (12 S. iii. 476). Bristowe Causeway, South London. This seems to have been an old- name for Brixton Road. A quotation from a little quarto by Thomas Powell entitled

Tom of all Trades,' 1631, appeared in

N. & Q.' in 1885 :

" Though she never have a dancing school-master* a French tutor, nor a Scotch Taylor to make her shoulders of the breadth of Bristow Cowsway, it makes no matter."

Hoare's ' History of Wilts ' says on the- authority of Sir Edward Bysshe, a well- cnown herald of the seventeenth century 'rom France (where he had been^serving
 * hat John de Burstow on his return in 1362