Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/303

 12 S. VI. MAY 29, 1920.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

247

ALLEGED ' REPRINTS OF THE TIMES AND OTPIER EARLY ENGLISH NEWS- PAPERS,' &c.

A LARGE volume bearing the above title is fairly common, and if I am not mistaken, the documents were at one time sold separately in the streets of London. But the volume boars the imprint " Presented by John Piggott, ' my Tailor,' 116 Cheapside, London, E.G.," and besides The Times contains a number of other documents. Its ostensible contents are, in order, as follows :

Alleged " Reprints of the Times and other Early English Newspapers " &c.

1. Magnet Charta. " Facsimile " and transla- tion.

2. Death Warrant of Mary Queen of Scots " Facsimile."

3. English Jlereiirie. Invasion of England. July 23.

4. Weekly News. Execution of Guy Fawkes.

5. Death Warrant Charles I. " Facsimile."

6. Intelligence. Execution of Charles I.

7. The Gazette. Death of Oliver Cromwell.

8. The Newes. The Plague.

9. London Gazette. Fire of London.

10. Declaration of American Independence, Julv 4, 1770.

11. The Times. Saturday, Jan. 26, 1793. Execution of Louis XVI.

12. The Times. July 3, 1797. Mutiny at the Nore.

13. The Times, Oct. 3, 1798. Battle of the Nile.

14. The. Times, April 16, 1801. Battle of Copenhagen.

15. The Times, Nov. 7, 1805. Battle of Tra- falgar.

16. The Times, Jan. 10, 1806. Funeral of Lord Nelson.

17. The Times, June 22, 1815.T Battle of Waterloo. V

18. The Times, Aug. 15, 1821. T Funeral of Queen Caroline.

Taking these documents in order. First, I am unable to say anything about the alleged facsimile of Magna Charta, as I have been xmable to compare the document with the original, but I should imagine that the remarks I have to make about the rest of the bogus "facsimiles" will be found ^to apply also to this one. x_^ ^, ^

The death warrant of Mary Queen" of Scots is not a facsimile, but an altered copy of the original document. The same remark applies to the Charles I. document. Why the draftsman of these frauds should have taken the trouble to inspect and to alter the wording of the original documents does not appear, but neither of the copies are " facsimiles."

The five " newspapers," commencing with Lord Hardwicke's clever hoax, The English Mercurie of the Armada times, must all be struck out as frauds. They never existed, and even the Newes, giving an account of the Plague, and The London Gazette de- scribing the Fire, two newspapers which were in existence at the time, are also con- coctions. The original documents can be seen at the British Museum and are totally different.

The eight " reprints " of The Times have been compiled by a different method. All the matter contained in them has been taken from the original document?, and the general make up and appearance of The Times preserved, but they are much smaller than the originals so that a large amount of the contents of each number has been> omitted. Therefore, they are not '^re- p'ints." X.

REVENGE ON ONE'S LUCK.

I CUT the following paragraph from am article in The Yorkshire Evening Post of Jan. 18, 1919, relating various- incidents connected with the Navy during the late- war :

" In the course of one cruise a submarine of the- Harwich Flotilla had fired seven torpedoes at various enemy ships without result. The captain discovered one of his crew kneeling on the deck over a bucket of sea water. He was holding under the water, and mercilessly wringing an object against which he was directing a volume of abuse- in terms frankly nautical. Disgusted at the failure of the torpedoes, he was drowning the- ship's mascot, a teddy bear, or similar doll, hoping to change the luck."

It may perhaps be instructive to compare this incident with illustrations taken from Prof. Tylor's ' Primitive Culture.' He tells^ us that the Kurile islander throws his idol into the sea to calm a storm ; that the negro will beat an idol, or fling it into the fire, if it cannot give him luck or preserve him from sickness ; and that the Ostyak, who clothes his puppet and feeds it with broth, will, if. it brings him no sport, try the effect of a. good thrashing on it. He refers to stories of worshippers in China abusing some idol that has failed in its duty. " How now," they say, "you dog of a spirit; we have given you an abode in a splendid temple,, we gild you and feed you and fumigate you with incense, and yet you are so ungrateful, that you won't listen to our prayers!" So they drag him in the dirt, and then if they get what they want it is but to clean.