Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/267

 12 S. V. OCT., 1919. ]

NOTES AND QQERIES.

261

f St. John of Jerusalem (1501), until is death in 1527. The dress of the lady epieted in the brass is undoubtedly of 'udor period .and not late fourteenth or irly fifteenth century, which would be the ate of Elizabeth Brockett's death.

James Bocwra, elder brother of Sir 'homas the Prior, married Catherine, daughter f John Haseldon of Murdon, co. Cambridge, 'he arms -of Haseldon are: Arg., a cross ory sable, and those of Brockett being >r, a cross flory sable ; hence the confusion. &ut the lady's dress is the real clue to date.

Why James and his wife were buried at last Hatley is a mystery. The family were t that time seated in and around Bradkirke Kitchin), but John, the son and heir of ames, married Ann, daughter of Thomas t. George of Hatley St. George, the next arish to East Hatley.

J. DOCWRA. ROGERS.

Manor House, Ashmansworth, nr. Newbury.

CAPT. WILXJAM CONSIDINE, 69TH REGI- [BNT. A memorial tablet to this officer in he cloisters of the cathedral here has Bcently fallen to the ground and is smashed eyond repair. I am writing in the hope hat some descendant or friend of the family lay see my note and come forward and eplace the tablet. If this be not done then he memory of a good and gallant soldier rill die out as far as this place is concerned, rhich is much to be deprecated.

I will gladly answer any inquiries.

JOSEPH C. BRIDGE.

Chester.

PIANO LEGS IN TROUSERS. A corre- pondent (8 S. iv. 463-4, s.v. ' " Electrocute " r " Electroeuss " ') writes : " Americans tave found .... indecency in the legs of a >iano."

Whether Capt. Marryat was the first to mblish this curious conceit I do not know. le told of it eighty years ago in his ' Diary in America, with Remarks on its Institutions.'

am quoting from the Paris (Galignani's) dition, 1839, first part, pp. 203-4. He tells LOW he was escorting a young lady at Niagara i^alls. Standing on a rock, she slipped down, md hurt herself. She had in fact grazed ler shin. Marryat said : " Did you hurt r our leg much ? " She turned from him ividently shocked or offended. He begged o know what was the reason of her dis- deasure :

" After some hesitation, she said that as she
 * new me well, she would tell me that the word leg

ras never mentioned before ladies. I apologized or my want of refinement, which was attri- mtable to my having been accustomed only to

English society, and added, that as such articles must occasionally be referred to, even in the most polite circles in America, perhaps she would inform me by what name I might mention them without shocking the company. Her reply was, that the word limb was used; ' nay,' continued she, '1 am not so particular as some people are, for I know those who always say limb of a table, or limb of a piano-forte.' "

Marryat, in illustration of the above, writes of an incident of a few months later :

"I was requested by a lady to escort her to a seminary for young ladies, and on being ushered into the reception room, conceive my astonishment at beholding a square piano-forte with four limbs. However, that the ladies who visited their daughters, might feel in its full force the extreme delicacy of the mistress of the establishment, and her care to preserve in their utmost purity the ideas of the young ladies under her charge, she had dressed all these four limbs in modest ^ little trousers, with frills at the bottom of them."

Marryat's visit to America began May 4> 1837, and covered nearly two years.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

STEPNEY FOR THE OCEAN-BORN. Readers know that down to early Victorian times the belief was general in the Port of London that the English ocean-born, and sailors having no traceable local " settlement " under the old Poor Law system, were commonly registered as chargeable to the maritime parish of Stepney ; and that " Bumbles " of a season of acute and general distress, anxious to be rid of a burden, quietly rid themselves of this responsibility without recourse to the High Courts of Law and Equity. It is now announced that

" Among the passengers landed the other day from the Pacific liner Oriana was a little girl who was born on the Orduna, in South American waters, just before the War broke out, is a British subject, registered at Stepney, although of foreign parentage."

Me.

A SPURIOUS CHARTER OF THE CONQUEROR. In the Gloucester Cartulary No. 316 purports to be a copy of a charter granted by the Conqueror in 1086, confirming to St. Peter's of Gloucester the lands which Archbishop Thomas (of York) formerly held of the abbey, together with the gifts of various donors. (' Hist, et Cart. S. Petri Glouc.,' Rolls Series, i. 334.) The editor remarks that the cartulary heading ' De hyda in Aspertone,' " is quite inapplicable to the charter to which it is prefixed " ; but he does not hint at any doubts of the charter itself, which opens with a suspicious dating clause : " Anno Incarnationis Domini mille- simo octogesimo sexto, ego VTillelmus," &c.