Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/359

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S. L APRIL 30, '98. ]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

351

liseharge is due to the varying resistance of

he air, may the compression of the air in

ront of and above the train serve as a shield 1

A discharge from the earth would pass along

he rails. One encountered by the engine

vould probably be conspicuous to the driver

before passing into the metal of the engine.

On the whole, it seems likely that the effect

of the train on the air does afford safety.

The same effect will be produced by the

cyclist, who would have the same protection.

There would be no protection, however, from

a discharge coming from the earth ; but does

such do harm 1 W. K. G.

Of course they are dangerous, when you are mounted on metallic supports ; unless you had a metallic conductor from the top of your hat to the machinery. Three or four feet of copper ribbon might be ready to fix to the axle and to the crown of your hat. E. L. GARBETT.

"DAIN" (9 th S. i. 247). Query, compare daun (odor), an unpleasant smell, a stink (Icelandic)? W. H. B.

SUPERSTITIONS (9 th S. i. 87, 249). Probably the north was the source of evil because the devils had their habitation there. Milton makes Satan say :

Homeward with flying march, where we possess

The quarters of the North.

' Paradise Lost,' bk. v. 11. 688-9. Milton, in placing the devils in the north, was following a known superstition, which [ have met with elsewhere, either in Scot's ' Disco verie of Witchcraft' or some similar work. E. YARDLEY.

In connexion with this subject it may be worth noting that the dark man superstition is not confined to Great Britain. The Chinese consider a woman peculiarly unlucky as a first-foot after the new year has begun, and a Buddhist priest is even more unlucky than a woman in this light (see Wirt Sykes's 'British Goblins'). H. ANDREWS.

and the principle holds good in the enlightened nowadays. If you be a man of dark complexion, or if you be of the fair sex, do not make an early all on the first of January ; if, however, you belong to the sex which is not fair, and be blonde never- theless, go to your friends as soon as you please, and you shall be gladly welcomed by them all ; for m some parts of England and Scotland it is held that that will be an unhappy year in which a person leaves the house before one has crossed the threshold from without, or in which the ' first-foot ' is either raven-haired or feminine." 'Notes on the Months' (1866), p. 20.
 * '0mnia principiis inesse solent,' wrote Ovid,

C, P. IlALE,

COPE AND MITRE (8 th S. xii. 106, 175, 350, 493; 9 th S. i. 14, 212). E. C. A. says the alter- native (chasuble or cope) was not optional. But can any instance be given of the use of the chasuble at the administration of the Lord's Supper from, say, Queen Elizabeth until the Anglo-Catholic revival under Vic- toria, either in a parish or cathedral church? The late Dean Burgon said ('Letter of Friendly Remonstrance to Canon Robert Gregory,' Longmans, 1881, p. 51) :

" Explain the matter how you will account

for the phenomena of the case in whatever way you please the fact remains unassailable, that never in this church and realm, nowhere and by none, since the Rubrical Note [the Ornaments Rubric] in ques- tion first appeared, have such ornaments

[chasuble, &c.J......been employed by the clergy of

the Church of England."

Until, I admit, the rise of the High Church movement. Again, says E. C. A., " for the missa sicca the cope was provided." But at St. Paul's and other places copes are worn for the full Eucharistic service by bishops and other dignitaries. Does any bishop wear has any bishop worn except the Bishop of Lincoln, a vestment or chasuble? I do not refer to colonial or Scots Episcopal bishops, but to prelates of the Established Church from, say, Elizabeth to Victoria.

GEORGE ANGUS. St. Andrews, N.B.

KILOMETRE AS AN ENGLISH MEASURE (8 th S. xii. 166). I was formerly of MR. J. B. FLEMING'S opinion on this question, but of late years I have come to the conclu- sion that the sooner we adopt the French system the better. I agree, however, that it cannot be done at once, and that the newspaper in question should have added the English equivalent in parenthesis. If ' Whitaker's Almanack' is correct, I ought to use the word British here, as it seems a mile in Scotland is the same, and, moreover, 'Whitaker' calls it the British mile. Never- theless, I do not feel quite confident, for 'Whitaker' teems with oddities and errors. This is apparently inevitable in a work of reference. Perhaps some of our Scotch friends will tell us if it is a fact that all English measures are now the legal standard in Scotland.

The facility with which one can add up French money is most delightful, and has ong made me wish for a decimal coinage, not, lowever, with tenpence as the unit, but ten pounds or ten hundreds. This has no doubt all been thought put by those who have con- sidered the question.

But when MR, FLEMING suggests that a