Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/620

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vn. DEC. 25, ioao.

of a similar kind, hence the joke of the man who when asked why he travelled "third," said "Because there's no fourth." I think it was not very long before vans were pro- vided for luggage, which then ceased to be carried on tops of carriages. J. T. F.

Winter-ton, Lines.

The exceedingly interesting letter the subject of Mr. F. T. Dalton's recent note on " Early Railway Travelling " revives interest in this subject and I have brought together in the following note some new facts and identifications gathered from a mass of papers and correspondence accu- mulated in recent years.

To The Daily News of Aug. 19, 1890, Mr. E. Eastwood of Chesterfield wrote of his recollection of seeing an excursion train in the summer of 1840 run from Sheffield to Derby. This was an exceedingly early date for such an enterprise. The railways concerned were not then amalgamated and the length of the train " 47 carriages drawn by four engines " is almost impossible. I must express a preference for the claim put forward by Sir James Allport ( The Daily News, Aug. 16, 1890) that under his arrangement the first excursion was run from Birmingham to Ambergate for Mat- lock in 1842. Sir James was then manager of the Midland and Derby Railway, and arranged for the train to run through to Ambergate, where a canal carrying company took the passengers by goods boats suitably fitted with seats over the Cromford Canal to Matlock. The excursion was so success- ful that the boat accommodation was inadequate and many gentlemen had to walk along the towing path both to and from Cromford for Matlock.

A third claim has received prominence from a firm of Excursion Promoters who contend that Mr. Cook provided in July, 1841, an excursion from Leicester to Lough- borough. This may be dismissed as improbable, but it was possibly a later development of the excursions organized in the same year by Messrs. Sansum & Day of Birmingham from the Camp Hill Terminus in that city.

Of the many claims put forward and mass of correspondence and personal recol- lections brought in support, Sir James Allport 's well authenticated statement is the most credible. The enterprise is more of the nature of an excursion and its date does not seek improbable priority.

ALECK ABRAHAMS,

"Now, THEN !*" (12 S. vii. 469). This friendly protestation is not very difficult to explain. It is usually short for "Now then, drop it," or "stop it," or "be- quiet." Neither "now" nor "then." are temporal in sense. "Then" clearly = "therefore," and "now" has the same meaning as in such phrases as " Well, now," "So, now," where one might just as well say "Well, then," and "So, then." Aix equivalent of "Now, then!" would be "Now, now!" The 'N.E.D.' says that "now " and "now then " are used "in. sentences expressing a command or request

^b. the purely temporal sense weakened or effaced," and that it is used "in later times also with elipse of verb." Is not the German Nun as an interjection used some- what similarly ?

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

I think this colloquial idiom is hardly capable of grammatical analysis, at least I am sure that if any living man attempted to make one, half the readers of ' N. & Q.* would be set a-cavilling. Though not onomatopoeic it is as inter jectional as Pooh ! O ! Oh ! Ah ! Pshaw, Go to, Come* on, Why, What ? and scores of other em- bellishments of the sort. Its meaning varies widely. If I say, "Now, then,, let us set off," I mean let us go without delay.. If I say, "Now, then ; you hold that, &c.," I intimate that I am going to try to convince somebody of the falseness of his position. If I exclaim "Now then ! " sharply, to a boy, he may believe that he had better desist from what he is doing, or conform to some wish of mine which he has not yet fulfilled.

I wait with interest to hear what the brethren have to tell us. ST. S WITHIN.

See 'N.E.D.' under "Now " II. 10, and "Then," B. 5. It is there shewn that "now" is frequently used "with the purely temporal sense weakened or effaced, and "then " as a particle of inference," "That being the case," &c., and in both places "Now then " is referred to. So that your correspondent is right in his view of " then. " And if neither word here indicates time, there is no contradiction. In the West Riding of Yorkshire almost every remark is introduced by "Nah ! " used merely as an interjection, calling attention to an. opinion, as "Nah ! I reckon nowt on't."

J. T. F.

Winterton, Lines.