Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/485

 9* s. xi JUNE 13, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

477

'The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries/ by C. W. Heckethorn, 1897 p. 331 ; also pp. 157-77, &c.

J. H OLDEN MACMICHAEL.

Probably your correspondent will find what he requires in Baron Bartholdy's 'Memoires sur les Socie'te's dans le Midi de 1'Italie' anc 'Memoires sur le Brigandage dans le Mid de I'ltalie,' an English translation of whicl was published by John Murray in 1821.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN 71, Brecknock Road.

KURISH GERMAN (9 th S. x. 406 ; xi. 90). MR. G. ACKERLEY will not take it amiss, I hope, if I contradict his statements about the Kurish German. The well-educated Kur landers speak an excellent German, and the peculiarities of that of the middle classes are not taints originating in Lettish, but such a can all be found in the several dialects of our country. He will riot be able to quote one single construction derived from Lettish syn- tax. " Ich werde spazieren heute " is a gib- berish which every real Kurlander would spurn to use ; it is manifestly Yiddish. He may say "Ich geh ins Aussemland," but cer- tainly not " Aussemlande"; neither do we say "ins Auslande," but "ins Ausland."

" Ich fung an zu schreien " is heard in many parts of Middle Germany, e.g., Coethen, Dessau, Mansfeld. It is the same with " er loff." Goethe says :

Ich bin gar rnanche Wege geloffen,

Auf m Neidweg habt Ihr mich nie betroffen.

In biographies of the seventeenth century I have frequently met with the phrase "Er war durch hohe Schulen geloflen " = " He had had college training." Also we in the Duchy of Anhalt use the form "herausser"; when children we sang the old nursery rime A, B, C,

Die Katze lief in'n Schnee, Als sie widder herausser kam, Hatte sie weisse Hosen an.

The letter g is pronounced y on the Lower Rhine as well as in East Prussia in fact, in the whole of Lower Germany. The Southerners ridicule the Berlin people for " Eene jut jebratene Jans is 'ne jute

Jabe Jottes"; the vulgar i for il, e for o, is a disagreeable feature of, I think, three- quarters of our dialects. We had another nursery rime used for " telling-off" :

Meine Mutter hat gesagt, Sauer is nich siesse,

Nimni dich keene Bauersmagd, Die hat krummeFiesse ;

Nimm dich eene aus de Stadt,

Die jerade Beene hat.

Kraufen is not peculiar to Kurland ; /and

ch are interchanged in many German dialects. Compare'English shaft, our Schacht ; soft and sacht, sanft; Dutch lucht, our Luff; and the old pronunciation of enough, cough, tough, with the present one. "Der Schmant" for bahne, cream, is also used in East and West Prussia ; it is of Slav origin. Whether there are any words of Lettish extraction in the Kurish vocabulary I very much doubt. Would MR. ACKERLEY kindly give such as he thinks belong to that class? The Kurlanders are a stout race, very proud of their German nationality, and very anxious to preserve as firm as possible the only tie left them which holds them to the Fatherland.

G. KRUEGER. Berlin.

ARMS OF MARRIED WOMEN (9 th S. ix. 28, 113, 195; x. 194, 256, 290, 473; xi. 114, 197, 313). MR. CAMPBELL correctly says that a peeress in her own right who is married bears her arms on a lozenge. But he omits to add (what I pointed put in 'N. & Q.') that her arms, ensigned with her coronet, are placed also in pretence on her husband's shield. Heraldry is the shorthand of genealogy, and, if every woman may " bear her paternal arms on the feminine lozenge," how are we to know whether she be maid, wife, or widow ? GEORGE ANGUS.

St. Andrews, N.B.

MR. HOWE, it seems, would subject heraldic practice in this particular to the Married Women's Property Act, 1882. The idea is ingenious, and has much to recom- mend it. Pity the question of a married lady's arms was not covered by a special clause in the statute, especially as a man's coat-armour is a chattel real in the eye of the law. JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS.

Monmouth.

BRITANNIA THEATRE, HOXTON (9 th S. xi. 386). Referring to MR HIBGAME'S interest- ing communication on this subject, perhaps I may be permitted to mention that I remember very well indeed my first and only visit to the " Old Brit.," more than a quarter of a century ago. I occupied on the occasion
 * o which I refer a seat in the centre of the

pit, and I must admit that I was simply amazed to see how densely " the great theatre" was packed with an audience whose enthusiasm during the evening was pro- digious. As a lover of the drama my voyage was undertaken for the purpose of seeing for myself how East-End playgoers enjoyed themselves on a Saturday night. I was not disappointed. I may add that I was not a ittle amused, not to say surprised, when I