Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/377

 12 s. vii. OCT. 16, 1920.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

309

JR THE CBYSTAL PALACE BAZAAB. The demolition! of premises at the north-east corner of Oxford Circus has brought to sight this once familiar bazaar now, alas ! to be lost for ever. My own recollections suggest it existed as a bazaar until the late seventies, when it was absorbed by a neighbouring drapery establishment.

In its earliest years it had some vogue as fe place of exhibition of panoramas, but in tae sixties was, I believe, the scene of a disastrous fire. Unfortunately, I cannot gi/e date and the only reference at hand indicates its prospective opening :

likely to loose the monopoly they have hitherto enjayed. A new Bazaar, built of iron and glass
 * The Soho Bazaar and the Pantheon are

on Paxtonian principles and situated in Oxford Street just by Regent Circus, with entrances fron Oxford and Regent Streets, will, it is said sooi be opened to the public " (The Illustrate Tines, July 24, 1858). ALECK ABBAHAMS.

POBIN HOOD BIBLIOGRAPHY. (See re fereices at 12 S. i. 427). The following maj be idded : Five Ballads about Robin |Hood, 210 copies, 8

Vhcent Press, Birmingham, 1899. GuttQ ( J. M.) On the veritable existence of Robin

H-od, Brit. Arch. Assoc., viii. 208-222. Plan<he (J. R.) A ramble with Robin Hood

Asoc. Archit. Socs., vii. 15, 174.

J. AUDAGH.

WLLIAM WATSON (? 1559-1603). The 'DJ.B.' does not notice ^that William Wafeon, a boy, arrived at the English College at Rheims from Rouen on Feb. 7, 1581, and was admitted as a student of infeior rank (Knox, 'Douay Diaries, p. 1'5). If, then, he was 16 years of age whei he came to Rheims, and if he was born on ^pr. 23, as he himself states, the year of his lirth must have been 1564 and not 1559. The article on ' William Watson ' in the 'D.\ T .B.' says that he and William Clark wer- executed on Dec. 9, 1603 ; while that on ; William Clark ' says that the priests Wason and Clark and the layman George Brc3ke were all executed on, Nov. 29, The truh of the matter seems to be that the pri<sts Watson and Clark were hanged and quartered in the Market Place at ^Winchester on Nov. 29, and George Brooke, the only laxman executed for the alleged plots (the Miin and the Bye) was beheaded in the Cestle Yard at Winchester on Dec. 5. The e\idence for these plots must have been very scinty : and the priests probably suffered irainly for their priesthood.

JOHN B. WAINEWBIGHT.

COLUMBUS AND THE CHOSEN PEOPLE. A correspondent of a London daily journal possibly a rummager among obscure or hidden Sephardic records in the Spanish Peninsula announces that he has alighted upon some confirmation of the once prevalent suspicion that the so-named Christopher Columbus was born one of the Chosen People, arid that he drew inspiration and material assistance in comrades and in cash from the crypto -Jews who permeated the whole realm, of Ferdinand and Isabella and the Kingdom of Portugal. More recently the claim has been advanced in Jewish newspapers that "most of Spain's Colonial possessions in the days of her National prowess not least her American were gained by Jewish influence and effort in one way and another. ' ' The Spanish historian, Celso Garcia de la Riega, asserts definitely that Columbus the reputed " discoverer " of America was of Jewish parentage settled in Pontevedra. Christopher, feeling that he would stand little chance at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella, transferred his domicile to Genoa, and he was baptised there. All the friends ot Christopher Columbus were Jews of sorts, and chief among them were Abraham Mendez. de Castro, the Court physician. De Castro assisted the " Genoese " adventurer to engage the interest of their Most Catholic Majesties and gave him as a talisman an ancient Mezzuzah to which the legend attached was that once it held place on the door-post of King Solomon's Temple.

Whether the new discovery will emphasise the claims of dubious lost tribes of the Chosen People that America is theirs "by right of discovery " does not yet appear, but, meantime, it may be noted that the Jewish Encyclopaedists expressly point out that Christopher Columbus had personal relations with Joseph Vecinho, physician - in-ordinary to John II. of Portugal, and with other learned Jews or " Moors " (who were probably really of The People). At Salamanca Columbus became personally acquainted with Zacuto, the famous Jewish mathematician, whose astronomical tables Columbus always carried with him and found most serviceable. At Malaga he met the Marano farmer-in-chief of taxes, Abraham Senior, and also the distinguished Isaac Abravanel, who assisted him financially. In hort, the Rabbis of the Jewish Encyclopedia lave no difficulty in showing that Columbus was deeply indebted to Jews for aid of all

orts

and some sailed under his pennon.

Me.