Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/556

 458 NOTES AND QUERIES. [ 12 s.vm. JUNE 4,1921. LIGHTFOOT (12 S. viii. 410). The follow- ing are extracts from Hotten's ' Emigrants, &c., to America, 1600-1700.' A List of Names ; of the living in Virginia, february the 16, 1623. At James Cittye and wth the corporacon thereof John Lightfoote. (p. 174.) Musters of the Inhabitants in Virginia 1624/5 The Muster of Capt. Baph Hamor Servants John Lightfoote in the Seaventitre. (p. 223.) W. J. M. AMERICAN CUSTOMS : A LONG GRACE (12 S. viii. 151). It is not customary to say any grace before dinner, nor before any meal. By this statement I do not mean to say that grace is never said before meals, but that it is not a custom. I will go further and say that it was not customary to do so in 1872, as stated by Mr. Herbert Paul in his c Life of Froude.' It is customary now, and was then, to say grace when a clergyman or minister of the gospel is present at a meal, and to ask the minister to say it. Froude was connected with the High- Church party under Newman. He re- signed his Deacon's orders in 1872, and in the same year lectured in the United States on the relations between England and Ireland. Owing to his Church connexions it was natural that grace should be asked whenever he was present as a guest. Such would probably be the case at the present time. As grace was always asked when he was present, he received the erroneous impression that it was the custom to ask grace at all dinners. It is manifestly impossible for me to speak for the entire country ; I can only speak for such sections as I am familiar with, viz., the New England States, New York State, and to some extent the southern States, but I have made inquiries of other people, and all agree that there is no custom about it. My experience has been that it is more generally asked in families wor- sliipping in the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches than in other faiths, but that may be merely my personal experience. In one of our New England colleges, the students are expected to say a silent grace before all meals. Doubtless thousands of persons do this as a *personal custom. WILLIAM F. CRAFTS. 69, Cypress Street, Brookline, Mass., U.S.A. REPOSITORIES OF WILLS (12 S. viii. 251). Where deposited in the United States. In the New England States (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode I Island and Connecticut), also in the Stata of New York, and I think generally in the eastern States, wills are deposited with the Registrar of Probate for the county in which the testator is living at the time of decease. For instance, wills of residents of towns and cities in the county of Middlesex, Massachusetts, would be deposited with the Registrar of Probate in the shire town for that county, which is Cambridge, Massa- chusetts. What the practice is through- out the United States I cannot say, as it may be different in different States, as are ! but efforts are being made to make them I uniform throughout the United States. I As most of the western States were settled ! by people from the eastern States, it is probable that the same custom would pre- I vail there, as to probate matters, in the ! repositories of wills. WILLIAM F. CRAFTS. 69, Cypress Street, Brookline, Mass., U.S.A. LTJDGATE, LONDON (11 S. iv. 485; v. 35). I have a small seventeenth-century book 1 on the History of England, the title and i author of which I do not know, as several pages are missing at the beginning and end. Amongst much quaint matter, accepted with an old-time credulity, are shrewd dis- of our island with the Continent, the j etymology of place-names, &c., which have i a quite modern tonp of enlightenment. The author discusses (p. 136) the origin of
 * the inheritance laws. These vary materially,
 * cussions of the former geological connexion
 * the name of Ludgate, " which some will

needs have so to have bin called of King Lud, & accordingly infer the name of the City." He rejects this because gate is no Brittish word, & had it I taken name of Lud it must have bin Ludporth, ! and not Ludgate ; but how commeth it that all the Gates of London, yea, and all? the Streets I and Lanes of the City having English names, i Ludgate only must remain Brittish, or the one half of it, to wit, Lud ; gate as before hath bin said, being English ? This surely can have pro- ceeded of no other cause than of the lacke of heed that men have taken unto our ancient Language, and Geffrey of Monmouth or some other, as unsure in his reports as he, by hearing onely of the name of Ludgate might easily fall into a dreame or imagination that it must needs have had that name of King Lud. There is no doubt but that our Saxon ancestors (as I, have sayd) changing all the names of the other