Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/41

 9* s. XL JAK. io, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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tree under which the treaty was signed be- tween William Penn and the Indians, as he was descended in the female line from Penn. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

I have seen the following lines somewhere current, I believe in the West Country (Devon or Cornwall) :

Green is forsaken, yellow 's forsworn, Blue is the sweetest [qy. prettiest ?] colour that 's worn.

Can any of your correspondents say where they are to be found ? C. S. JERRAM.

[See 9 th S. viii. 193.]

" QUITE A FEW " (9 th S. x. 208, 318). In confirmation of C. C. B.'s remark that " few" and " many " are only comparative terms, I may mention that the version I heard in Huntingdonshire, some forty-five years ago, of the rime he sends, had " few " where he gives "many." The children there used to say:

One 's none,

Two's some,

Three's a few,

Four 's enew (enough),

And five 's a little hundred.

The last line was explained to me as meaning that five was the natural interest on a hun- dred. W. D. SWEETING. Holy Trinity Vicarage, Rotherhithe.

" BIRMINGHAM'S DRESS " (9 th S. x. 409, 472). Surely " a Birmingham " is not a dandy, but a counterfeit imitation at second hand of the veritable dandy ; one who dressed (a long way) after the Prince and the Duke in humble imitation, and was, in fact, a base presentment of the real article.

" Birmingham " and " Brummagem " in the early half of the last century invariably meant something sham made to imitate the real. I remember, as a child, an old lady repeated to me the following (and other) lines :

Mai o' the Wad and I fell out, And what do you think 'twas all about ? I gave her a sixpence, she said it was bad. "It's a Brummagem button," said Mai o' the Wad.

And a " Birmingham " in dress doubtless meant exactly the same thing as a " Brum- magem" in sixpences, viz., a worthless imita- tion. W. SYKES, M.D., F.S.A.

Exeter.

WATCHHOUSES FOR THE PREVENTION OF BODYSNATCHING (9 th S. x. 448). When a boy at old Bancroft's School, Mile End, I remember an octagonal watchhouse, with pent roof, situated in the then recently disused Jews' Burial- Ground, which was

separated from one side of the by a high buttressed ancient Brick wall. This watchhouse I always understood had been erected for the prevention of body- snatching. Once on every night in each year, from 1862 to 1866, the watchman in the burial-ground fired a blunderbuss from the watchhouse at nine o'clock. This blunderbuss discharge, I ascertained from an old man, who as a boy was at Bancroft's from 1824 to 1830, had been a nightly occur- rence in his time. And from masters, old servants, and local tradesmen, at the time and since, I gathered that the blunderbuss signal was at least a century old. I left Bancroft's School in 1869, but, strange to say, do not recollect the nightly fire - warning after 1866. F. E. MANLEY.

Stoke Newington.

With reference to the query as to the above, there is a perfect specimen of a tower in the churchyard of Eckford, Roxburgh- shire. Through the exertions of Mr. Walter Laidlaw, custodier of Jedburgh Abbey, a very excellent photograph has been procured quite recently of this structure. Within the memory of man a similar erection stood on the confines of the Abbey burying-ground of Jedburgh. J. LINDSAY HILSON.

In Petty Churchyard, near Inverness, there is a square building, near the entrance gate, for this purpose ; and in Eckford Churchyard, near Kelso, is a round one in the same position. R. B R.

HANGMAN STONES (9 th S. x. 467). Hang- man Stones are heard of in the counties of Leicester, Derby, Pembroke, Devon, Essex, Sussex, and York. For details see ' N. & Q.,' 2 nd S. i. 15, 282, 402, 435, 502.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

MELISANDE (9 th S. x. 467). Melisande in the wood is a character in Maurice Hewlett's ' Forest Lovers. ' W. H. Fox.

HARP (9 th S. x. 448, 514). I have an old JEolian harp which belonged, I believe, to my grandmother. It was made to fit the sash of a window. This one measures 32 inches long by 4| broad, and the upper surface is sloped. At each end are eight pins to attach the wires ; the gut appears to have been all fine A strings. The centre hole is the size of a five-shilling piece. The depth is 1 to l inches. (Mrs.) J. COPE.

Much information with regard to the con- struction and use of the ^Eolian harp, with verses occasioned by its description, will be