Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/67

 12 S. VII. JULY 17, 1920.] NOTES AND QUERIES. '51 warranted, for the advertisement ends thus : " Note, Thursday next being Ascension Day, when the Courts will not sit, and it is apprehended 'the Houses may not, is the reason for beginning 'xthis sale a Day sooner than was before advertised." Unquestionably, "the Houses" refer to Parliament, nor can it be doubted that "the Courts" mean the Courts of the Exchequer, the Crown and the Common Pleas at Westminster. I elt a difficulty therefore in accepting Mr. Macmichael's -explanation at the time of compiling the list, but as he conclusively shows that some years later Mr. Pinchbeck's son in fact carried on business in Cockspur Street, I hesitatingly adopted it. I have now, fortunately, found .n official entry which I hope determines the matter. It occurs in ' Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers, 1735-1738' (1900), at p. 501 : B*V' Aug. 15, 1738, Whitehall Treasury Chambers. Present : Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Sundon, Mr. Winnington. " 105. Petition to the Treasury from Edward Robinson. Sets forth that for many years he lias kept the British Coffee House in Old Palace Yard, Westminster, and by that means is pro- prietor of the staircase leading into the Court of Bequests, which he has at his own expense main- >tained with a lamp for ten years past for the . accomodation of the members of both Houses of Parliament, and kept same in repair without ever receiving any consideration for the lighting, cleaning and repairing said staircase. Prays a reward for same. & '^Referred to Board of Works." ^ The petition was sympathetically con- sidered for^on; Jan. 23 following there is a minute': "" " Their Lordships agree to a report from the Board of Works for allowing 80 to Mr. Robinson for keeping and repairing a passage leading by liis coffee-house to the Court of Request. The Board for the future are to make those repairs when found necessary." It is therefore placed beyond cavil that there existed two contemporaneous " British " 'Coffee-houses, the remembrance of the one in Old Palace Yard being obliterated by the great celebrity of the Cockspur Street house. Such readers as the matter interests will perhaps be good enough to delete " adjoin- ing the Court of Request " at the above reference. Robinson's house, where astute Mr. Pinchbeck hoped to waylay wealthy members and counsel in big practice, will bo included in a supplementary list. J. PAUL DE CASTRO. 1 Essex Court, Temple. RUE DE BCUBG, LAUSANNE (12 S. vi. 274, 317). Having lived in Lausanne from September, 1909, to March, 1915, I know the Rue de Bourg very well. Shortly before I left, the new street, the Rue du Lion d'or, was completed from the Derriere Bourg in course of which several old houses were demolished. In July, 1912, a friend of mine, a good amateur photographer, took several fine photographs of the oldest buildings before they were destroyed. I have in front of mo, as I now write, the following photographs : (1) East side of the Hotel du Lion d'or ; showing arcading and stone balustrading. I am not sure whether this was destroyed. (2) South view of the same, showing a fine 5 -sided tower for stairway. (3) Arcading and balustrade, showing date, 1706. (4) A very elaborate coat -oi- arms carved in stone over the entrance-door of a house, situated in a small yard, which is entered by a covered passage from the Rue de Bourg, and is, I believe, the next building to the hotel on the west. Whether the two had any connexion, I do not remember. I am not a Herald so describe the arms with some hesitation. In the first and fourth quarter is a Cock sideways I suppose he would be said to be striding. In tLe second and third is a chevron, wavy, and three acorns, 2 and 1 . The crest, upon a crest wreath, is a cock with both wings displayed, his breast is to front, but as his coxcomb appears to bo sideways the face and beak being broken, t must be supposed that he w T as facing his right wing. The closed helm is front-facing. The following is extracted from " Sketches f the Natural, Civil, and Political State of Switzerland," by William Cox, M.A.. Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, London, 1779 pp. 307-310. "At present (1770 ?), Lausanne is governed )y its own magistrates, has its own courts of ustice ; and, what is very singular, the citizens who inhabit the principal street have the privilege f pronouncing sentence in criminal causes. The riminal is tried by the civil power ; if he is found, and acknowledges himself, guilty (for his own
 * onfession is necessary, otherwise he is put to the

treet assemble, an advocate pleads in defence of he prisoner, and another against him ; the court >f justice give their opinion upon the point of law ; and the majority of the burghers in question determine the penalty. If the punishment be apital, there is, strictly speaking, no pardon, xcept it be obtained within twenty-four hours rom the sovereign council of Berne ; although
 * orture until he confesses) the burghers of this