Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/13

 s. x. JULY 5, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

defines it tentatively as "an unidentified animal." Looking over the appendix to Bruce's 'Travels,' 1790, vol. v. p. 182, I have come upon the key to the riddle. The sheregrig is a bird, and its name is merely the Arabic shirikrak (or shirigrag\ which appears in all the best Arabic dictionaries. Johnson, 'Arabic and Persian Dictionary,' 1852, defines it as '"magpie." Lane, 'Arabic Lexicon,' 1863, has " woodpecker." It is three syllables, not two, as marked in the ' Cen- tury.' It is evidently the same as Hebrew skarakrak, a bird which, according to the Talmudists, will announce by its hissing the

coming of the Messiah. JAS. PLATT, Jun.

v

INACCURATE ALLUSIONS TO STERNE, THACKE- RAY, AND DICKENS. In the Sketch of 19 Feb- ruary there is a short article by Mr. T. H. S. Escott on ' Bygone Brighton,' which contains incidental allusions to passages in three of our greatest English novels ' Tristram Shandy, ' Vanity Fair,' and ' David Copper- field.' It is rather surprising to find that in each instance a more or less serious mistake has been made.

We are told that "with two exceptions

the later Clubs of Brighton are apt to be like Tristram Shandy's scullion here to-day and gone to-morrow." The fat, foolish scullion in the service of Walter Shandy said, on hearing that Master Bobby was dead, " So am not 1." The words " here to-day," &c., are apparently due to an inaccurate recollection of part of Trim's moralizing in the kitchen :

"Are we not here now, continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and sta- bility), and are we not (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone ! in a moment ! " Vol. iv. chap. vii. p. 44, in 6-vol. edition of 1782.

Near the beginning of Mr. Escott's article Mortimer Collins is described as "a Sedley (not Josh of 4 Vanity Fair ') born out of his generation." But Amelia's brother was Jos.

In another part we read of "one or two more of the old ' blood and culture' school, who invoked Thackeray as their patron saint, and who never forgave the satire pointed at them by Dickens in his description of Mr. Spenlow's dinner party."

The writer, presumably, was here thinking of the " sanguinary small-talk" at Mr. Water- brook's table (' David Copperfield,' chap, xxv.), when the "simpering fellow with the weak legs " compressed the general question into a nutshell by the remark, "I'd rather at any time be knocked down by a man who had got Blood in him, than I 'd be picked up by a man who hadn't !" Beside this may be set a passage from the

patron saint of the "-blood and culture" school. Did not James Crawley, in reply to his cousin Pitt's reminder, " By the way, it was about blood you were talking, and the personal advantages which people derive from patrician birth," make the speech be- ginning "Blood's the word," and ending "Blood, sir, all blood"?

Whether there is an equal amount of accu- racy in Mr. Escott's account of Mortimer Collins's waistcoat and George Augustus Sala's necktie may be safely left to the de- cision of experts in that branch of literary history; but perhaps, after all, "it's of no consequence." EDWARD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, South Australia.

POUND'S DAY. The following paragraph from the Western Daily Mercury of 24 May seems worthy of permanent record in the pages of 'N. &Q.':

"A curious custom" called 'Pound's Day' was observed in Exeter yesterday. Towards the St. Olave's Home, in connexion with the Church of, England Waifs- and Strays' Association, people * made gifts of pounds of tea, or sugar, or bread, or meat, or coffee, &c. The presents were all in pounds. Donors who personally carried their dona- tions to the home were welcomed by the officials and entertained at tea."

A Pound's Day was. recently held with suc- cess at the Rosehill Hospital for Children at Babbacombe, when pounds of almost any- thing were accepted, but, as may be supposed, pounds sterling were the most welcome.

A. J. DAVY.

Torquay.

["Pound Day" has been observed in London for some years on behalf of the same society.]

"MET": POINTS OF THE COMPASS. (See ' Pineapple,' 9 th S. viii. 226.) Writing from this part of the world, where the pineapple is carved, more or less, all the year round, I was struck by MR. HARPUR'S use of the word " met " in the sense of meeting an inanimate object, or something that could not meet you in the ordinary sense of the word ; in other words, in the sense of to find, as in the case used by your correspondent with reference to the ceremony he mentions. In this part of the West Indies the word is largely used in this sense.

An article of jewellery was recently lost by a member of my family, and on its being brought back, and inquiry made as to where it was found, "Oh !" said the finder, a native girl, " I met it in Street."

But one still more interesting peculiarity of native expression has often struck me, and that is with reference to bringing the points of the compass into use in describing