Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/146

 140

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[12 S. IV. MAY, 1918.

HEDGEHOGS (12 S. iv. 76). There was formerly a standing committee in every parish for the destruction of " noyfull fowles and vermyn," and this object was felt to be so important that the practice was expressly sanctioned by statute. A committee, consisting of the churchwardens and six other parishioners, was authorized to be appointed, with power to tax and assess every person holding lands or tithes in every parish yearly at Easter, and whenever else it might be needful to raise a sum of money to be put into the hands of two other persons, who were to distribute it. These distri- butors were to pay this money in rewards for the different sorts of vermin brought in, and a scale of payment was prescribed, which included twelvepence for the head of every fox ; a penny for the head of every polecat, wild -cat, or fitchewe ; and twopence for the head of every hedgehog. The statutes relating to the subject are 24 Henry VIII. cap. 10 and 8 Elizabeth, cap. 15. They have, however, long ceased to be operative. The urchin or hedgehog was destroyed because it was (and in some places still is) popularly supposed to suck the udders of cows, and abstract the milk. Its shape was also believed sometimes to be assumed by mischievous elves. Hence Prospero in ' The Tempest ' (I. ii.) says :

Urchins

Shall, for that vast of night that they may work. All exercise on thee.

In the witch scene in ' Macbeth ' the hedge- pig is represented as one of the witches' familiars. In calling a child a little urchin the elfish idea remains.

In the churchwardens' accounts for Clitheroe for the latter half of the seventeenth century there are many payments for fox heads at Is. each, and for fullimarts' or foomards' (that is polecats') heads at 2d: each. There are the following payments for hedgehogs :

1699. ffor 4 ffoomards 8d., and 4 hedge-

hogs lOd. 016

3 hedghoggs more. . ..006

1700. Paid for one foornard and 3

hedgehogs 008

WM. SELF WEEKS. Westwood, Clitheroe.

LILLIPUT AND GULLIVER (12 S. iv. 73). There is no need to go to Poole to find the source from which Swift took his hero's name. In The Athenceum for Nov. 25, 1905, Dr. E. J. L. Scott described Ms discovery among the Westminster Chapter archives of the proceedings in actions brought by Lemuel Gulliver of Westminster against

Peter Swift, yeoman, at one time of Longdon, co. Worcester, with bills of costs dated 8, 14, and 22- Geo. II. Longdon, as Dr. Scott observed, is " a place not far removed from Goderich, co. Hereford, of which Thomas Swift, grandfather of Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, was vicar."

The rash suggestion that Swift alluded to these actions in Part II. chap. vi. of the ' Travels ' was disposed of by Mr. G. A. Aitken and Mr. L. R. M. Strachan, who drew attention to the chronological error (Athenceum, Dec. 16, 1905).

EDWARD BENSLY.

The following foot-note is from Timbs' ' Anecdote Lives,' &c., vol. i. p. 54 :

" Rogers notes : ' When I was at Banbury "I happened to observe in the churchyard several inscriptions to the memory of persons named Gulliver ; and on my return home looking into ' Gulliver's Travels,' I found to my surprise that the said inscriptions are mentioned there as a confirmation of Mr. Gulliver's statement that his family came from Oxfordshire.' ' Table Talk,' p. 257."

H. C N.

SHEPPABD MURDER STONE (12 S. iv. 18). From the ' Nottingham Date-Book,' under the year 1817, I abstract the following particulars with reference to the above. The murdered girl was 17 years of age, and lived with her mother at Papplewick. She left there on July 7 to seek a place in service at Mansfield, and was seen to leave on her return journey about 6 P.M. Early the next morning her body was discovered in a ditch by the roadside ; her skull was badly fractured, and a large blood-stained hedge-stake, 5 feet in length, was found near. Her umbrella and shoes were missing. A Mr. Barnes was appointed to take charge of the case ; he soon found a trace of a mn who had sold the umbrella at Bunny, and who was later apprehended at Loughborough and made a full confession. He was a soldier named Charles Rotherham, aged 33, of Sheffield, and had served twelve years as a driver in the artillery, having visited Egypt, and been at Badajoz, Salamanca, and Toulouse. He did not know the girl, and had never spoken to her. On the impulse of the moment he struck her down, and repeated the blows until she was life- less. Discovering no money on her, he took the boots and umbrella, and these led to his detection. He was tried by the Hori, Sir John Bayley at the County Hall, Notting- ham, and at first pleaded guilty, but was prevailed upon by the judge to submit to a