Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/45

 9 th S. I. JAN. 8, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

37

WATCHMEN (8 th S. xii. 408, 490). Allow m to confirm ME. MOULE'S note with an excerp from a privately printed volume written b my mother, who was born in 1806. She thu describes the close of an evening party a Dorchester when she was a child. One o the guests was Mrs. (i. e. Miss) Elizabet Meech,~a whist-player who was, my mothe says, the " veritable likeness " of Mrs. Battle

"As the clock struck ten Mrs. Elizabeth rose (Though it was always long whist, they generall contrived to finish just before ten, but if the gam was not quite ended v the parties being at nine each for instance, they had to wait a little.) She ex claimed, with energy : ' Dear me ! there's the watch man ( ' ' Past ten o'clock, and a rainy night ") ; we mus go.' (The watchman was a great institution ii those days ; besides calling the hour he alway informed us of the exact state of the weather * thunder and lightning night' was duly reported.) ' Memories and Traditions,' 1895, p. 49.

W. G. BOSWELL-STONE.

Beckenham.

It may be worth noting that, although the watch was replaced by the police in 1829 there was an instance of a member of the pic body being kept on and paid by subscription raised amongst a few inhabitants and occu piers of warehouses, who, possibly, were doubtful as to the amount of protection that would be afforded by the new police force The locality was Tooley Street, London Bridge, the man Davis, who died in the fifties. Against his wish he was compellec to call " Past twelve o'clock," and so on untL " Past five o'clock." Davis was succeeded by a man named Prendergast, who only held the post for a short time. He was obliged to continue the practice, but it ceased with him. This probably is the latest date of the watch call in London. J. T.

Beckenham.

TREES AND THE ETERNAL SOUL (8 th S. xii. 503). MR. MACKINLAY does not give the authority for the verses he quotes about the connexion of " a certain oak " with the fortunes of Hay of Errol. Shall I be thought irreverent if I venture to suggest " an uncer- tain oak " as a better rendering 1 For this reason that the mistletoe is unknown in Scotland as a wild plant (Bentham's ' British Flora'), and because, although for many years I have sought for a mistletoe grow- ing on an oak (and that in districts of Eng- land and France where oak and mistletoe are most common), I have never succeeded in hearing of a well-authenticated instance thereof. HERBERT MAXWELL.

MEDIAEVAL LYNCH LAWS IN MODERN USE (8 th S, xii. 465). The mock serenade, in which

no bones were broken, is somewhat harshly called lynch law, which means, I believe, a hasty execution without trial. But the prac- tice ^ described is more widely extended than N. S. S. seems to be aware. It has been a favourite expression of popular ridicule for love troubles, foolish marriages, and the like, as well as of graver displeasure at conjugal infidelity. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was called a "Black Sanctus." Thus Holland, translating Livy, v. 37, " Truci cantu clamoribusque variis horrendo omnia compleverunt sono," renders "a hideous and dissonant kind of singing, like a Black Sanctus." And in Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Mad Lover' it is proposed to salute the unhappy gentleman thus :

Let 's give him a black santis, then let 's all howl

In our own beastly voices.

It is known in France by the name of chari- vari, and as chiavari in Italy. Story, in his 'Koba di Koma,' mentions, among marriage customs, that " when the bridegroom is an old man they pay him still another compli- ment in the way of a serenata alia chiavari, howling under his window madly with an accompaniment of pots and pans." Lastly, under the name or "rough music," I have myself seen and heard it some thirty years ago in an Oxfordshire village, the thing stig- matized being a wife's infidelity to her hus- aand. Doubtless the practice is now extinct, as such barbarisms should be. Yet in these days of School Board and dead level one can find in one's heart to regret the loss of a custom which, with all its roughness, had something characteristic in it ; and I have a ertain pleasure in remembering that I have seen what was a link with bygone days and i world now dead. C. B. MOUNT.

The Bavarian custom of serenading offen- ders with concerts of rough music has its uch performances are known as shdlldls, the lerivation of which word it would be inter- sting to know. For an account of the hallal, see my 'History of St. Ives,' &c. A mediaeval French illumination or carving, epresenting a band of similar "musicians," ill be found in Lacroix's ' Arts and Cus- oms of the Middle Ages.'
 * ounterpart in West Cornwall. At St. Ives

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. Town Hall, Cardiff.

The Haberfeld treiben reminds me of the old

English punishment of " riding the stang,"

vhich, I am happy to say, has not yet fallen

nto complete disuse. It is a form of public

msure inflicted on a man when he beats his

ife ; the clashing of kettles, tongs, and pans,