Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/22

 14 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vn. JULY s, 1020. GRUNDY FAMILY (12 S. vi. 272, 303). John Grundy was my great-grandfather. The family tradition is that he was a lieu- tenant in a line regiment, acquiring his commission at the cost of 1,000 guineas. He subsequently became proprietor of a mill at Eolton. He was a clever amateur artist, and I pos- ! sess a miniature painted by him which attains quite a professional standard. Most of his descendants have been connected with art. Two of his sons, John Clowes and Robert Hindmarsh, were among the founders of the Printsellers' Association, and the latter was a friend of David Cox, going with him on several sketching ex- peditions. The well-known engraving of 'The Lanca- shire Witch,' by Thomas Leeming Grundy (a third son), after William Bradley, is a portrait of John Grundy's wife, nee Elizabeth Leeming. C. REGINALD GRUNDY. Devonshire Club, 50 St. James's Street, S.W.I. From information I have received from a nephew of John Grundy, there appears to be some confusion in the notes ante. Lieut. John Grundy was born June 2, 1780 at Bolton, and was a lieutenant in the Army, and as his commission cost his family about 1,000 guineas, it would not, I assume, be the local volunteer army. He married Elizabeth Leeming, daughter of Thomas and Ann Leeming, and had a business as a millowner. He died April 10, 1824, and was buried at the New Jerusalem Church, Salford. The issue was John Clowes, Thomas Leeming, Elizabeth, Joseph Leeming, and Robert Hindmarsh. With further reference to this family my informant says that he has no record that Thomas Leeming Grundy was anything other than an engraver. He was born at Bolton 1808 married 1834, and died March 10, 1841. ARCHIBALD SPARKE. DOCK-LEAVES AND NETTLE-STINGS (12 S. vi.**: 295, 319). Jesse Salisbury in his south-east Worcestershire ' has : " Nettle -Sting. A remedy for the sting of a nettle is to rub bhe affected part with a dock-leaf, repeating while doing so this charm : Ettle, Ettle, 'ittle Dock Dock sh'll 'ave a golden smock, 'Ettle shaunt a' nerrun.' Cf. T. F. Dyer's 'English F o lk-Lore.' According to the latter, the charm is as old as Chaucer. Hunt, in his ' Romance and Drolls of West of England ' also refers to it, telling us that " the cold leaf was placed on the inflamed spot and the rhyme repeated three times." His version omits the last line. Apparently the use of the dock leaf is common throughout the country as a palliative. The virtues of the dock are worth looking up in Culpeper's ' Herbal ' : he dwells upon its cooling influence. C. P. HALE. South Hackney, N.E. My own experience of sixty years ago was that the juice of dock leaves not only eased the pain of nettle stings, but also cured the injury. In Derbyshire we used the most juicy and youngest leaves, and while rubbing with vigour, said : Nettle go out, Dock go in, Dock go in, Nettle go out. If this was omitted the remedy was not considered efficacious. I have known " green sauce," i.e., wood-sorrel to be used, and to be equal to dock-leaves as a cure. Old dock-leaves would not do. THOS. RATCLIFFE. In my Ulster Nursery seventy years ago the " sovereignest " remedy for the burning smart of stings, was what is known there as " a docken Leaf." In those didactic days we were impressively taught that kindly nature always provides this cure close to the nettle and we never failed to find the coarse green leaves near the offending plant. Nor did we ever fail to find relief if we obeyed the peasant's formula. " Rub it in very hard, and say all the time Docken in Nettle out." I have always imagined this to be one of the many folk-lore cures we believed in then, and I am therefore much interested in seeing that a more scientific knowledge confirms it. Y. T. OLD SEMAPHORE TOWERS (12 S. vi. 335). ENQUIRER will find an excellent account of the old semaphores in * The Harmsworth Encyclopaedia,' vol. ix., p. 311, together with no fewer than twenty- seven drawings showing the various positions of the arms as they were used for denoting all the letters of the alphabet, as well as numbers and other meanings. ALAN STEWART. See 10 S. xi. 168, 211, 271, 336, 358,433. JOHN.B. WAINEWRIGHT.
 * Glossary of Words and Phrases used in