Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/244

 236

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. XIL SEPT. 19, 1903.

caster. In * Kearsley's Traveller's Entertain- ing Guide through Great Britain,' 1801, col. 58, appears Robin Hood's Well. The only name given on the left is Col. Greville ; it appears to be probable that he was the owner or occupier of Skelbrook Park in or about 1801. Perhaps the above, although the dates are not the same as that given in the query, may be of some use. Skelbrook or Skell brook appears as Skelbrooke in the last 'Post Office Guide.' ROBERT PIERPOINT.

WAS MARAT A JEW? (9 th S. xii. 88.) I have carefully studied the evidence adduced by MR. HEBB, and rejoice to feel that this arch-scoundrel was not a product of Jewish parents. Jews have quite enough villains, without having another foisted upon them. The name Mara is not specifically Jewish ; at best it is a " bitter" compliment to a race to whom bloodshed is abhorrent. On his mother's side there is no trace of Jewish blood. Until it can be shown that Madame Cabrol was a Jewess, Marat's name cannot be added to the black list of distinguished Jewish blackguards. Marat's features alone are a poor index of Hebraic descent. How came Mara to develope into Marat 1

M. L. R. BRESLAR.

JOHN WILKES BOOTH (9 th S. xii. 25, 150, 197). The fact that John Hunter intended experimenting on the body of Dr. Dodd, in the hope of restoring life, certainly lends some colour to the rumour that he escaped the gallows. I copy the following paragraph from my article on Dr. Dodd in 'Bygone Lincolnshire' :

"After hanging the usual time the body was cut down and handed to the waiting friends. A hot bath had been prepared in a house not far away, and here John Hunter was in attendance to try his hand at restoring life. Owing, however, to the bigness of the crowd, precious minutes, and even hours, were lost before the body arrived, and by this time all hope of revivification was gone. ;j

JOHN T. PA<;K. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

W. H. CULLEN (9 th S. xii. 149, 194).- The earliest copy of the ' London and Provincial Medical Directory ' in my possession is dated December, 1855, so probably Dr. W. H. Cullen died some time between 1849 (the year of the publication of his book) and 1855.

Robert Dickson, M D., F.L.S., resided at 10, Hertford Street, May fair, London, at this date ; and in 1869 we find him living in retire- ment at Cambridge Lodge, Harraondsworth, Slough. Dr. Dickson graduated as a doctor of medicine at Edinburgh University in 1826, and became by examination a licentiate of

the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1830, and a Fellow in 1855. He was physician to the Scottish Hospital, and to the -Edin- burgh Life Assurance Company, and visiting physician to the Camber well House Lunatic Asylum. He was a Fellow of the Linnean Society and the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society, and the author of articles on ' Materia Medica ' and * Therapeutics ' in the * English Cyclopaedia.' CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D. Baltimore House, Bradford.

DOG OF ST. ROCH (9 th S. xii. 189). This is a very familiar .beastie in French churches, where St. Roch is one of the most popular of saints. The legend goes that when he went on a pilgrimage to Rome he expelled plague by the power of the Cross, yet was himself stricken by it, and nourished by a dog who brought him bread daily from the table of its master, who, being at length attracted to the sufferer, gave further and efficient succour. A pilgrim's garb, a plague-spot on the thigh, and the faithful hound are the usual attributes of St. Roch, who, according to one account, died at Montpellier.

"Nous vous supplions, Seigneur, de proteger continuellement votre peuple, et de le preserver, en vertu des merites du bienheureux Roch, de tous les fleaux contagieux. tant pour 1'ame que pour le corps. Ainsi soit-il."

ST. SWITHIN.

Baring - Gould's * Lives of the Saints,' August, p. 156, says :

"He [St. Roch] had healed the plague-stricken by thousands and tens of thousands, till he was himself attacked, when a dog brought him bread from a count's table every day to supply his necessi- ties. The count, following the dog, found Roch lying in a miserable hovel, convalescent. He supplied him with necessaries, and he recovered."

This was supposed to have taken place in or near Placentia in 1348. Butler, in his ' Lives of the Saints ' (16 August), says :

" Falling himself sick, and unable to assist others, and shunned and abandoned by the whole world, he made a shift to crawl rather than walk into a neighbouring forest, where a dog used to lick his sores He died, as it is commonly said, in 1327."

WM. NORMAN.

"PASS" (9 th S. xii. 189). Like the Editor [ should imagine that phrases such as

Please pass " or " Will you pass " so-and-so? were in common use all over the country. There may, of course, be English counties in which they are not familiar, but I think they can hardly be unknown in any household. In cases where good servants habitually wait at table there is very little need of using such expressions at all. They may there- fore, for this reason, be to a certain extent