Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/39

 12 s. VIIT. JAN. s, 1921] NOTES AND QUERIES. 27 value of the protest of Erasmus ? (3) Surely the Greeks "at the present day" (1528) would be better guides in the matter than either Erasmus or Smith or Cheke, as Italians are accounted to be in the pro- nunciation of Latin. (4) What is the root difference (other than that indicated above) between the two systems ? (5) Does either of them obtain in our Universities and colleges in our "present day " ? J. B. Me GOVERN. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester, THE PRESS AND CHRISTMAS. The general suspension of the publication of newspapers in England on Christmas Day, 1913, is recorded at 11 S. viii. 505, The Times being "tlie last of the London papers to break the continuity of issue. It may now be useful to note that no newspapers were published on Boxing Day, 1920, and that for three consecutive days (Sunday falling on Dec. 26) there wa^ an entire suspension of English 'newspapers. ROLAND AUSTIN. MADAME DE SEVIGNE AND MASSON. The ' Selection from the Letters of Madame de Sevigne and her Contemporaries ' (Oxford Clarendon Press Series, French Classics first published 1868) was edited by Gustave Masson, professor at Harrow School. The de Grignan, de Simiane, et de Maintenon ' (Paris, Bossange, 1835) was edited by J. R. Masson. This is probably the only instance of " classics " edited by two annotators of the same surname for educational purposes. The selections (so far as Mme. de Sevigne is -concerned) are nearly similar. ANDREW DE TERNANT. '36 Somerleyton Road, Brixton, S.W. TOBACCO : RETURNS. Inquiry among the tobacco authorities in this country having failed to elicit an explanation of the origin of this term as applied to a description of tobacco, I have been favoured by the Tobacco Merchants Association 1 of the United States, Beekman Street, New York, with the following references. Fairholt, in his ' Tobacco : its History Associations ' (1876), writes : 'I The lighter kinds of tobacco, such as Returns' Orinoco, c., are very sparingly wetted ; only just sprinkled, and not allowed to soak. They are just sufficiently damp to squeeze into form in the box ; and, owing to their dryness, are less easily'cut than damper tobaccos, which owe their dark colour principally to 'liquoring' ; and to increase this, the fltianufacturer saves the stained water which drains from the leaves, to wet the tobacco with, over and over again ; nothing is wasted in a tobacco factory." Prescott, in 'Tobacco and its Adultera- tions ' (1858), writes : "Shag tobacco is chiefly prepared from the Virginian and Kentucky leaves. Returns, from the small pieres of broken leaf produced in the various processes of manufacture." W. A. Penn, in 'The Soverane Herbe,' page 125, states : " Shag, the oldest of cut tobaccos, is prepared from strong leaf, very finely cut into strips of one- fiftieth of an inch, and steamed and kneaded. Returns is made in the same way from light coloured and mild tobacco. It is so called from being originally prepared by returning shag for re- cutting." J. LANDFEAR LUCAS. 101 Piccadilly, W.I. PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART'S SWORDS. The following short entry is transcribed from The Manchester Evening News, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1920, which seems worthy of a place in ' 1ST. & Q. ' : u A sword which was worn by ' Bonnie Prince Charlie ' has gone to the United States as a gift from Lord Garroch to Mrs. Calhoun of Washing- ton, a descendant of the House of Mar." The underneath subject was on view at Royal Jubilee Exhibition, Old Trafford, Manchester ; department of Old Manchester and Salford, 1887, and it was described in a catalogue, 'Relics of Old Manchester and Salford,' pp. 92. Sword bearing the inscription : " Presented to Sir Thomas Sheridan, Kt,, by His Royal Highness Prince Charles Edward Stuart, Lawful Heir to the Throne of Great Britain. Ireland, France, c., in the presence of the Chevalier de St. George, Visoount Strathallan. Lords Nairn, George Murray, Kilmarnock, Cromarty, and Bal- merino, at our Palace of Holyrood, Edinburgh, 1745. Semper fidelis secret et hardi." Owner (the late) Sir William Cunliffe Brooks, Bart., M.P. FREDERICK LAWRENCE TAVARE. 22 Trentham Street, Pendleton, Manchester. THE ANTIDOTE OF MITHRIDATES (See 12 S. vii. 519). The antidote of which the receipt is said to have been discovered in the cabinet of Mithridates VI, consisted of 20 leaves of rue, 1 grain of salt, 2 nuts, and 2 dried figs, but this is not the Mithridatium of the Roman and later physicians, or any- thing like it. Celsus gives a receipt (I believe the earliest known) containing 38 ingredients. These were afterwards in- creased to 75, but many receipts have less, and that adopted in the first London
 * Lettres Choisies de Mesdames de Sevigne,