Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/345

 12 S. IV. DEC., 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

339

There is a long and most interesting note in Frazer's Commentary, vol. v. pp. 227-30, in which we are told that

" the present passage of Pausanias is the only one, so far as I know, in ancient literature which distinctly speaks of a hole carried right through into the grave, so that the libations poured down it could reach the bones or ashes of the dead."

The practice is then illustrated by the archaeological evidence of a Greek barrow in the south of Russia, tombs in two Roman cemeteries near Carthage, and a funnel- shaped aperture in a round altar over a grave at Mycenae, as well as by similar customs in Africa, Peru, the West Indies, Java, North-Eastern India, and the South Pacific EDWARD BENSL.Y.

MR. OSBORNE will find references to the practice of feeding the dead through a pipe or funnel in Dr. James Hastings' s ' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,' vol. vi. p. 66. W. CROOKE.

GIGANTIC LEADEN COFFIN (12 S. iv. 299). In the Harvey vault of the church of the little village of Hempstead in North Essex there are two coffins of very large size, and the larger approximates nearly to the dimensions of the one about which the REV. A. B. MILNER inquires. Curiously enough, both contain bodies of persons who died abroad, and it is probable that in this fact lies the explanation. The corpse, if destined for ultimate sepulture in England, would most likely first be put into a shell, which, in its turn, would be enclosed in a coffin, and on arrival, if at all battered or disfigured by its journey, this would be placed, without disturbing its contents, in yet another coffin before deposit in its final resting-place. This is the explanation (and probably a true one) given to account for the size of the larger coffin at Hempstead, and no doubt also applies to the smaller one.

The latter bears the following inscription : " Edward Harvey | of Combe in the county of Surrey esq r | died the 24th of October 1736 aged 78." This coffin is 6 ft. 8 in. long, 2 ft. 5 in. broad, and 1 ft. 2 in. deep. Edward Harvey died at Dunkirk, and the shortness of the journey, reducing the chance of damage, would render further enclosure in England unnecessary.

The larger coffin bears the inscription : " Edward Harvey | esq r | died 15 April | 1784 | aged 19 years," and is 7 ft. long, 2 ft, 9 in. wide, and 1 ft. 10 in. deep. This Edward Harvey is said to have died in Turkey and his body to have been smuggled

home to England a long journey, perhaps necessitating several coffins. Although he- died on April 15, he was no buried at Hempstead until Oct. 2 following.

Would not a reference to the burial register provide some clue? It might even contain an illuminating note (not uncommon at that period) which would solve the- question. STEPHEN J. BARNS.

Frating, Woodside Road, Woodford Wells.

MEDICAL MEN ASSASSINATED (12 S.. iv. 217, 257). In thanking W. B. H. for his reply may I add the case of 1 Dr. Andrew Clench, whose murder is thus described by Evelyn (' Diary,' Jan. 6, 1692) ?

" Under pretence of carrying him in a coach to see a patient, they strangled him in it, and sending away the coachman under some pretence,, bhey left his dead body in the coach and escaped in the dusk of the evening.

" Note. A man named Henry Harrison was tried for this murder, convicted, and hanged."

S. D. CLIPPINGDALE, M.D.

In Cordy Jeaffreson's ' A Book about Doctors ' it is related that Dr. Bulleyn had an enemy who endeavoured to get him assassinated, but was foiled, c. 1590.

The following cutting from The Star of Nov. 15, 1918, seems to supplement the case in 1862 cited by W. B. H. :

" Prisoner for 56 years. There died this week at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum John Cox, who was convicted at the Dorchester Assizes in July, 1862, for the murder of a doctor. He cut off his victim's head and kicked it about. Cox was nearly 90 years of age, and has been in con- finement for over 56 years."

R. J. FYNMORE.

According to Sze-Ma Tsien's ' Shi-ki,' lib. cv., written in the first century B.C., Pien Tsioh, the greatest Chinese physician (sixth century B.C.), was assassinated by a villain employed by one of his inferior rivals in medicine named Li Hi.

Noma Sanchiku, the celebrated Japanese physician (c. 1700 A.D.), is said to have been assassinated by his serving boy, who bitterly resented his inordinate use of maledictions (' Shin Chomonshu,' written in the eighteenth century, lib. xiv. chap. xxv.).

KTTMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

JOHN LYON, FOUNDER OF HARROW SCHOOL, AND HIS GRAVESTONE (12 S. iv. 155). If the general acceptation of the term " dying without issue " is dying without issue capable of inheriting, MR. HARRIS STONE'S statement that John Lyon died! "without issue" is correct; but it must