Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/157

 12 8. V. JUNE, 1919.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

151

hair wore it in ringlets. Certainly 1 never saw the Fauntleroy style until after the publication of Mrs. Hodgson Burnett's famous book (1886).

This leads to another question : when were Jack's curls cut off ? It is curious that a man possessing such knowledge of, and sympathy with, boys as Daudet, should not mention what his hero would have thought one of the greatest events in his life. The artist evidently supposed that Jack was cropped shortly after going to the Gymnase Moronval (cp. illustration on p. 85). But on p. 119 Jack is described as " ce bambin boucle." In the English version referred to above this is rendered by " this curly-headed boy " ; but to make Jack's hair curly contradicts both the author for on p. 80 Jack tells Madou that "on me frisait tous les jours" and the artist, who always draws the boy's hair as straight after it has been cut short. The only later allusion, I think, is in the description of the hero on his arrival at Indret : " Les treize ans de Jack gardaient en effet une tournure un peu feminine. Ses cheveux blonds, quoique coupes, avaient de jolis plis, ce tour caressant donne par les doigts de la mere " (p. 302). Do the vague words " quoique coupes " imply that his curls had just been cut off for the journey, or merely that they had been cropped at some indefinite time in the past ? Is there any record of what Daudet in- tended ?

To pass from Jack's hair to his dress, the drawing on p. 241 contradicts the text on the same page, where we read that Charlotte was " suivie de Jack, auquel elle avait remis le costume favori de Lord Peambock, rallonge pour la circonstance, mais encore trop court." This " costume anglais " (p. 243) is clearly the kilt of chapter i. ; but the artist portrays Jack in trousers.

I believe that many of Daudet' s characters were drawn from life. Had little Jack a, prototype ? G. H. WHITE.

23 Weighton Road, Anerley, S.E.

PITT AND DUNDAS AT NEW CROSS. In his little book ' The Dover Road,' 1907, Mr. C. G. Harper says :

" It was at the Golden Cross, New Cross, that Pitt and Dundas, overtaken on the road from Dover to London by bad weather, put up for the night, and drank seven bottles of port apiece before they went to bed."

What is the authority (if any) for this remarkable statement ?

PHILIP NORMAN.

' TRILBY ' : ' LIFE or HENRY MAITLAND ' : KEYS WANTED. In the past ' N. & Q.' has printed keys to many well-known works. Is it too soon to ask for 1he real names of the characters in Du Maurier's novel ? " Little Billee," I have read or heard, was founded on Frederick Walker. Did not Whistler insist on one of the illustrations being altered, as he was represented in too lifelike a guise ?,

Another work to which one would like to have a key is Mr. Morley Roberts' s ' Life of Henry Maitland,' which is reputed to represent the life of the late George Gissing. DE V. PAYEN-PAYNE.

DR. GEORGE ROBERTSON BAILLIE. I seek genealogical details of the ancestry and descendants of George Robertson Baillie, a son of John Baillie, a merchant in Edinburgh. Dr. Baillie was born about 1765, in or near Edinburgh. He practised as a doctor in. St. Vincent, and subsequently (after 1793) at Coventry. He had an uncle Thomas Baillie who became a colonel, and died in India Any information will be appreciated.

JAMES SETON-ANDERSON.

18 Culverden Down, Tunbridge Wells.

" GET THE NEEDLE." In the course of a theatrical lawsuit in the King's Bench Division in February last, before Mr. Justice McCardie, one of the defendants, a "coloured" music-hall comedian, in giving evidence, said : "I got the needle and came out." It .would be interesting to know if this slang term for taking offence has been traced to its origin. J- R- "

JOHN SHAKESPEAR OF RATCLIFF HIGHWAY. I am anxious to find the ancestors of John Shakespear of Ratclift Highway, ropemaker, born about 1612-19. Mr. G. R. French in ' Shakspeareana Genealogica,' p. 554, sug- gests that John Shakespear of Ratcliff Highway may have been the John, son of Thomas Shakespeare, gent., whose baptism is recorded in the registers of St. Gregory by St. Paul's, July 18, 1619. Mr. French says this Thomas is apparently the ame as Thomas Shakspere of Staple Inn, 1604-7, who is entered as " de Lutterworth in Com. Leic., gent.," and who, Mr. French considers, was the Thomas Shakspeare of Lutterworth who in 1597 acted as agent for William Glover (see ' N. & Q.,' 1 S. vii., April 5, 1853 and who, Mr. French thinks, may have been a son of Thomas Shakespeare of Snitterfield.

Mrs. Charlotte Stopes in ' Shakespeare s Family,' p. 158, suggests a possible descent for John the ropemaker from Henry Shake-