Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/355

 12 s. ix. OCT. s, 1021.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 289 The exhibition room became a sale room and probably a gambling hell, when this part of the West End was so infested. I have no knowledge of the length of occu- pation by Messrs. Graves. Possibly some history of the firm will provide data for the apparent hiatus. ALECK ABRAHAMS. YAWNING FOB A CHESHIRE CHEESE. Addison, writing in The Spectator, No. 179, for Tuesday, Sept. 25, 1711, says : . . . I hope you will oblige the world with some reflections upon Yawning, as I have seen it practised on a Twelfth-night, among other Christmas Gambols, at the house of a very worthy gentleman, who always entertains his tenants at this time of the year. They yawn for a Cheshire-cheese, and begin about Midnight, when the whole company is disposed to be drowsy. He that yawns widest, and at the same time so naturally as to produce the most yawns amongst his spectators, carries home the cheese. . . . I have been unable to discover any other reference to this " gambol." ROBERT GOWER. HUMOURS OF THE ORDNANCE SURVEY. I wonder if other counties have suffered from the ignorance of the Ordnance Survey officers as Berkshire has done. " What's the name of that wood," one asked an old road- mender. *' Jenance," replied the aged man. " Thanks." Whereon the officer recorded " Genesis " on his map, and so it remains to this day. I could point out many others equally comic. E. E. COPE. Finchampstead, Berks. ST. PETER'S CHAPEL-OF-EASE, WEST- MINSTER (see 12 S. viii. 441). In June I foretold the possibility of this chapel (1767-1921) being swept off the face of our Westminster earth. It was on Sept. 25 that the last services took place. In view of its splendid associations, it may be as well if this be chronicled. M. E. W. MICHAEL FAIRLESS. Twenty years after the death of the author of ' The Roadmender,' there is a doubt as to where she is buried, and it will be well to place on record in the columns of ' N. & Q.' the place where she rests. She died on Aug. 21, 1901, aged 33, and was buried in the closed churchyard at Ashurst in West Sussex, under the adopted surname of Dowson ; a cross marks the spot, but pilgrims visiting it and looking for an inscription under the name of Barber have been disappointed. ARCHIBALD SPARKE. THE QUAKERS' LONGEVITY. "Mr. John Hanlock of Banbury, said to be the oldest member of the Society of Friends in Eng- land, has just celebrated his 100th birthday. He takes daily walks accompanied by one of his two daughters." (Vide The Manchester Evening News, Saturday, Sept. 10, 1921.) I forward the enclosed cutting from a London journal in the fifties, under heading of ' Memorabilia ' ; which may serve as a supplement on the topic : TOBACCO NOTE. LONGEVITY OF QUAKERS. I find from a registry of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, " that, as a consequence of their abstaining from tobacco, one-half that are born live to the age of forty-seven years ; whereas Dr. Price tells us that, of the general population of London, half that are born live only to two years and three-quarters. Among the Quakers one in ten arrive at eighty years of age, of the general population of London only one in forty." Never did a more powerful argument support the late verdict of The Lancet. J. B. N. FREDK. L. TAVARE. 22, Trentham Street, Pendleton, Manchester. WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest j to affix their names and addresses to their queries BALL ON THE TOWER OF WEST WYCOMBE CHURCH. Can any reader supplement the account which I have been given of the origin of the ball on the tower of West Wy combe Church, Buckinghamshire (re- built by Sir F. Dashwood, afterwards Lord le Despenser, in 1793), that the ball was used for signalling purposes between mem- bers of the Dashwood family living at Hawley and Wycombe respectively, the corresponding station being what is now a ruined building on a hill close to the Staff College at Camberley, known as " The Obelisk," and cut on almost every brick of its lower storey with names of Sandhurst cadets since the early days of the Royal Military College. I should be glad to have any details of the history of either tower. S. RADICE. SIR JOHN MASON'S TOMB, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL. In Canon Vaughan's little guide to the cathedral, p. 222, is a descrip- tion of the above. Now some years ago a tracing of a glass window was sent to me from the Elms, Hartley Wintney, and I
 * in order that answers may be sent to them direct.