Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/92

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2B.iv.MABCH,i9i8.

his brother Prince Albert, when the ship was commissioned in 1879, and when the princes went round the world in it. Copies of the hymn were gent to the chaplain (now Canon Dalton, of Windsor), who had it sung at the Sunday evening services on^ board. The young princes liked the hymn so much that they sent a copy home to their mother (Queen Alexandra), and she, with the princesses, sang it at home every Sunday evening while the princes were at sea.

" In 188e the Chaplain of the Fleet asked permission to insert the hymn in the ' Manual of Common Prayer at Sea,' which was readily given. A few years ago it was also put into a collection of school hymns for Wellington College, and it was included in the 1889 edition of ' Hymns Ancient and Modern.'

" During the South African War the hymn became a great favourite, and now again it is being sung frequently in practically every church in the land. In the third line of the first verse there is a curious alteration of a word, which has not improved the sense. The original has ' Keep our loved ones, now far distant,' but this has been changed to ' absent ' in editing."

I have endeavoured to find further biographical details of this lady, but so far without success. Details of her paren- tage, birthplace, and subsequent history would be greatly valued by many readers. L. H. CHAMBERS.

Bedford.

PAULUS AMBROSIUS CHOKE : A SEVEN- TEENTH-CENTUKY ACCOUNT BOOK (12 S. iv. 5, 36). The five items that appear detailing the purchase of silver articles in these accounts are oxtremely^interesting. If those silver articles are still in existence arid they were to be sold to-day, their relative value would be enormous ; for comparatively little Jacobean silver has survived the Civil War which devastated the country a few years subsequent to the dates enumerated.

July, 1613 (p. 6, col. 2), standing cup weighing 9 li. Us., and April, 1617 (p. 7, col. 1), 12 silver spoons, 5 li. 17s. Is there not some confusion of weight and price in the above ?

June, 1615 (p. 6, col. 2). for a " skinker pot." It is interesting here to note that the weight and fashion average approximately 6s. per oz. A " skinker " was a jug, a name now obsolete so far as silversmiths are concerned. If such a Jacobean piece weigh- ing upwards of 38 oz. were to be sold by auction in these times, it might realize any- thing up to 1,OOOL

It is also of interest to note the record of a fashion during the Stuart period for the gilding of table silver, as disclosed by these accounts.

Perhaps the most enlightening gift re- corded is that of " two silver forks " (June,

1625, p. 7, col. 2) for "my sister .... and niece...." Ss 4c?. Forks were not at that period in very general use, and whereas spoons were then apparently presented by the dozen (see item in April, 1617, mentioned above), odd forks only were deemed of sufficient importance to be supplied as gifts to the better classes of those times.

Silver forks of the early Stuart period are to-day extremely scarce ; whilst in the England of Elizabeth it was declared from the pulpit that the introduction of forks would demoralize the people and provoke divine wrath. F. BEADBTTRY.

Sheffield.

"RAPEHOTJSE" (12 S. iv. 46). The rasped wood was used by dyers. Wagenaar in his admirable history of the city of Amsterdam devotes several pages to a description of the Rasphuis, and mentions the following kinds of wood that were rasped there : Campechie, Sapan, St. Martin's or stockfish, Fernambuk and yellow wood, Viset all suitable for dyes.

The rapehouse at Exeter was probably founded on the lines of the one at Amster- dam. In the seventeenth century many penitentiary and philanthropic institutions in England were derived from those already in existence in the United Provinces. There used to be two rasphouses at Am- sterdam, the one a voluntary house of retreat, the other a penitentiary. See ' Amsterdam in zyn Opkomst,' &c., by Jan Wagenaar, city historian (Amsterdam, 1765), vol. ii. p. 250, &c. W. DEL COUKT.

47 Blenheim Crescent, W.ll.

[ST. SWITHIX also thanked for reply.]

" MEBTJS " (12 S. iv. 11). I came down in December last from Passchendaele Ridge: I always (or generally) heard the pillboxes described as " mebuses," and often wondered as to the origin of the word. One day up there I heard two officers dis- cussing the point, and they thought that " mebus " represented the initials of German words : they had the five words too, but as I know no German I cannot remember what they were. But on returning to England I got a man in my ward (I have not long been allowed out of bed) to go to the Free Libraiy for me, and he tells me that, accord- ing to Smith's ' Latin-English Dictionary,' a " maebus " signifies a castellated watch- tower. He says that he could find the word in no other Latin dictionary. Is not this explanation at least as likely as the initial business ?