Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/383

 9* s. xii. NOV. 7, loos.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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course, out of the question ; moreover, such names as viper's bu gloss and snake weed (Polygonum bistorta) merely come into the category through the doctrine of signatures. It should be added that the mongoose never betrays that botanical knowledge with which it has been fabulously credited by Linscot and others. J. DORMER.

SWORN CLERKS IN CHANCERY (9 th S. ix. 408, 512 ; x. 34 ; xii. 154, 277, 335). I must apologize for my careless mistake to MR. SCATTERGOOD, MR. FRY, and to the British Kecord Society. From the latter part of MR. FRY'S reply at the last reference he appears to have forgotten pp. ix-xi of his own Introduction. For the distinction be tween the Six and the Sixty Clerks, the latter of whom were technically known as the " Sworn Clerks," see also W. S. Hpuldsworth's ' History of English Law,' vol. i. pp. 215-17, 221 ; and E. B. V. Christian's * Short History of Solicitors/ pp. 204-6.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES (9 th S. xii. 305). Under this heading, which, by the way, is not appropriate to the contents of the note, HELLENIST, speaking of brigandage viz., highway robbery, in plain English compares Corsica with Sicily. The comparison inflicts a severe injury on the Corsicans, for highway robbery is unknown in Corsica, and HELLEN- IST mistakes banditisme for it. The bandit, from the Italian bandito, means originally an outlaw, and murders committed by the Corsican outlaws have nothing to do with robbery. These murders arise from the old barbarian custom of vendetta, and are the result of private feuds between country Capulets and Montagues. But persons who are not connected with these family quarrels may go unmolested and safe at least, when they are not gendarmes ! through the places where the vendetta rages. H. GAIDOZ.

22, Rue Servandoni, Paris (VI C ).

"BiSK" (9 th S. xii. 186). Perhaps EMERITUS may find a little light upon his puzzle by remembering that bisk or bisque, as a soup, means specifically one made of fish, gener- ally shell-fish, but not always ; and that, in any case, it is very much thickened with the shredded or hashed particles from which it is made. Littre's only definition of bisque, the soup, is "Potage de coulis d'ecrevisse." In Bescherelle's ' Dictionnaire National,' in the phrases following the definition, occurs : " Bisque de poisson ; celle qui se fait avec des hachis de carpes, leurs oaufs et leurs laites." There is the impression, or, at least, the

associated idea, of a thickened mass requiring many fish for its preparation, and so some- what corresponding to the ''hecatombs of animals " for the meat course. M. C. L. Montreal.

BANNS OF MARRIAGE (9 th S. xii. 107, 215). I am much obliged to the REV. JOHN PICK- FORD for his reference to Act 6 & 7 Wil- liam IV. I have obtained from the King's printers a copy of this Act, but have failed to find therein any reference to an alteration in the law as to the publishing of banns. I imagine that Geo. IV.'s Act, from which I quoted, must be still in force, for a paragraph in clause xlii. of William's Act runs as follows :

" Provided always, that nothing herein contained shall extend to annul any marriage legally solemnized according to the provisions of an Act passed in the fourth year of His late Majesty George the Fourth, intituled ' An Act for Amending the Laws respect- ing the Solemnization of Marriages in England.'"

I may add that the main provisions of William's Act seem to refer to the solemniza- tion of marriages before the registrar and in Nonconformist chapels. JOHN T. PAGE.

West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

THE " SHIP " HOTEL AT GREENWICH (9 th S. xii. 306). Much misapprehension is prevalent respecting this hotel. In the first place, the sign is not the "Ship," but the "Ship Torbay," and the house was so licensed in 1854 to a man named Lee, who transferred it the following year to Mr. Samuel Quatermaine, whose business cards bore a view on top of "The New Ship Torbay." The old house of that sign stood where the waiting-room on the pier is now waiting for passengers by the river steamers, and was pulled down in 1852 for the Hospital grounds enlargement, which swept away the old "Ship," which stood at the angle of the path behind the pier, and alongside was a draw-dock called the Ship Dock, which reached as far as the site of Bellot's monument. This house was either built in 1664, or superseded another known as the "Still," and belonged to Noel Warner, the King's bargemaster. A half- penny token, dated 1669, was issued from this house, and a farthing one without date, but probably contemporaneously, as the same andlord's name is on both. Yet this was not the original " Ship," whose site is now covered by the north-west angle of the Naval Jollege. The earliest mention I know of it is in 1616, and it was pulled down about 1664, when the old Palace was being demolished to build the new one. A scarce token, and a very handsome specimen, dated 1649, was issued from here, the initials denoting Samuel Smith.